Rotten raspberries, not to mention rotten dispositions, as a fog mull continues to envelop Down East Maine – from June into July, from July into August. This is undoubtedly one of the soggiest summers in recent memory, and slugs and mushrooms are about the only things thriving.

Weekend news reports stated that Portland experienced fog or haze on 22 out of 30 days in June, followed by 25 days out of 31 in July. August has been a wash … literally.

That’s why an announcement last week proclaiming that Maine’s “drought was officially over” brought guffaws in these parts where folks haven’t seen enough sun to keep the mildew off the phlox.

If Portland has been drippy, Down East communities have been downright sodden. Had anyone around here kept count, they would have registered at least 92 out of the past 92 days that have been drizzly, damp, misty or soaking wet.

How can it be, then, that meteorologists still contend most counties in Maine – all but Washington, York and Cumberland – still have below normal groundwater levels? They aren’t calling it a drought anymore; they’re just calling conditions “abnormally dry.”

What a conundrum, when bath towels sour from not drying, the mud on new drywall remains sticky and mold forms on bread crusts, yet these folks at the National Drought Mitigation Center insist Maine is one of the few Eastern states where “abnormally dry conditions remain.”

Apparently, they haven’t seen the galoshes everyone is wearing around here even to go out and pick blueberries, or the slickers visitors are sporting just so the bright yellow can be seen through the soupy fog.

These people discount the heavy snowfall that buried us last winter; they ignore the rainy spring that turned golf courses into swamps. And they certainly haven’t viewed the wet spider webs stretching across our property like weird ground cover, or the algae sliming up the back deck.

According to state climatologist Greg Zielinski, it can take several years to make up for a precipitation deficit such as the one the state experienced in 2001. He and other climate scientists warn Mainers not to get too comfortable just because the drought is officially over. The state is still “teetering,” these folks say, and could plunge back into drought without continued cool weather and normal rainfall. Hmmph!

“We need a hurricane – it’s like nature’s drought-breaker,” Zielinski is quoted as saying just last week when the seven-day forecast for the Bangor area and Eastern Maine again called for scattered showers, drizzle, thunderstorms, afternoon rain and coastal fog.

At this moment, what we Down Easters need is not, for crying out loud, a tropical storm, let alone hurricane. What we crave, as John Denver sang about, is sunshine on our shoulders.