Don’t mention the word drought. Don’t remind us that earlier this month Maine still was under “drought conditions,” according to the National Drought Mitigation Center.

Don’t quote climate experts who say the state still has not recovered fully from the dry summer of 1981. Don’t repeat the fact that since the start of 2003, most of the state has received below-average precipitation – about a 3-inch deficit for Bangor and Portland and a 1.8-inch deficit for Caribou.

How can anyone, even meteorologists with the National Weather Service, report that “thus far, 2003 has been drier” than last year?

Around these parts, we’re as waterlogged as a Louisiana swamp.

The winter of 2003 dumped more snow Down East than residents have seen in years. And the snow fell continuously, through April, only to be replaced by rain … continuously, through May.

So don’t mention drought to farmers around here whose garden rows stand underwater like a rice crop. Don’t talk about drought when we sun worshippers would merely like to see two straight days of sunshine.

How can Memorial Day visitors envision an old droughty Maine when rains wash out lobster bakes, camping trips, boat launchings, picnics, parades and tent weddings?

Something doesn’t jibe when we drive by the Smokey Bear signs and notice the forest fire danger set at “high,” all the while peering through windshield wipers that send sprays of water into the side mirrors.

Maybe there are dry conditions lingering in some sections of Maine, enough to cause concern among potato or blueberry farmers, among members of the state’s Drought Task Force, among homeowners with shallow water wells, among firefighters who remember the dangers of the past couple of years.

We’re not minimizing those worries; it’s just that they’re hard to comprehend when the peepers are performing their nightly chorus from low areas around here that have turned into virtual ponds.

Water is everywhere, rushing as streams through woodland swaths to the shore, standing in pools between boulders, filling crevices in ledges, swelling ditches and potholes along muddy roads. There’s no need to patch and scrub the birdbath yet.

It just seems the snow melted into mud season around here; then the monsoons began. And, sometime in between fell two or three days of short-sleeved shirt and sunscreen weather, before putting on the galoshes again.

Down East temperatures have hovered in the 40s for so long we just naturally light a fire every evening just as we wrap up in a fleece pullover most every day. Though the calendar claims May is almost over, the apple trees haven’t blossomed. The forsythia hasn’t turned to leaf, the tulips haven’t gone by, and spring actually hasn’t arrived Down East.

Just don’t mention drought to us … or to the black flies.