I must apologize right out the gate. This was not the Musing I planned to share this week. The old one was written, ready to record, and all set for publication. Don't fret. It'll keep until next week, assuming no distractions.
D. K. Wall:You see, something came up. Or more exactly, went down. However you want to describe it, a momentous event derailed my train of thought. It rained.
D. K. Wall:Our back porch is screened in. We have a fireplace for winter, a ceiling fan for summer, its spinning blades stirring the humid air just enough to convince me it's helping, and a peaceful view of wildlife and trees.
D. K. Wall:It's the perfect place for dinner, which is exactly what we were doing. A good meal, a glass of wine, dogs asleep in various spots around the porch, and a gentle rain steadily bouncing off the leaves and pinging on the metal roof.
D. K. Wall:It's one of my favorite sounds. The constant tinkling of falling water, a shroud muffling noise from further away. No hum of traffic to disturb our peace. Just the peck, peck, pecking of drops all around us.
D. K. Wall:So what, you say. Is rain really that unusual? No, not normally. But this summer hasn't exactly been normal.
D. K. Wall:Oh, we've had storms. Raucous squalls with gusts of wind, flashes of lightning and crashes of thunder, barrages with sheets of precipitation pounding the ground. Gullies turn into rivers. And rivers grow dangerous. That we've had. Several times.
D. K. Wall:And I've got nothing against thunderstorms except maybe the fact that they scare my dogs. I know it's difficult to imagine that animals who fearlessly stalk ferocious squirrels could possibly be frightened by something as simple as a booming sky, but 'tis true.
D. K. Wall:When the first rumble rolls over the ridge, the transformation is instant. Mighty hunters become quivering puddles of fur. Nothing quite like 60 pounds of panting, shedding, trembling dog, all elbows and toenails climbing me like a pine tree with a bear at the bottom.
D. K. Wall:The weird thing is I love thunderstorms. The lightning streaking across the sky, jagged patterns of momentary art against the blackness. The rattling boom shaking the windows. The wind whipping tree branches in circles.
D. K. Wall:Would be great to sit on that porch and enjoy the spectacle, but the claws sunk into my skin make that a wee bit challenging.
D. K. Wall:On the opposite end from a downpour, of course, is the lightning, thunder, and wind with nary a drop of rain. All the theatrics with none of the moisture. The cacophony without the precipitation. We've had plenty of that too.
D. K. Wall:The weather app on my phone promises an 80% chance of rain, and I believe it every single time. Like Charlie Brown trotting toward that football.
D. K. Wall:The sky darkens. The wind kicks up. The leaves flip over and show their pale undersides, which every old timer in these mountains will tell you means rain is coming.
D. K. Wall:Storms gather along the ridges and sweep into the valley. Then the whole thing splits around our house like creek water around a boulder. We get a few fat drops, barely enough to spot the windshield and raise my hopes, and then the clouds wander off to soak somebody two hollers over.
D. K. Wall:Such has been this summer. Gluttony or famine. A rain gauge coated in dust night after night, or overflowing after an hour's deluge. Never the proper balance in between.
D. K. Wall:Neither extreme is much help, especially not for a new house with a new yard. My long crunches underfoot. My young shrubs beg for the least little drink. Even the moss on the north side of the oak looks thirsty, and moss doesn't ask for much.
D. K. Wall:And we've had many a night where no storm threatened us, Just soft breezes, birds singing, owls hooting, and dogs snoring. Not a cloud in sight. Those are lovely evenings watching the sky morph from blue to pink to red to black.
D. K. Wall:But what we've needed is a gentle rain thrumming its patient rhythm uninterrupted for hours. And that we haven't had much of this year. Until the other night.
D. K. Wall:It sounded magical to my drought weary ears. I even thought I could hear blades of grass singing a joyous celebration with those parched shrubs humming like backup singers.
D. K. Wall:So when dinner drew to a close, we cleared the plates and settled in the rocking chairs on the porch. No social media. No phones. Just Mother Nature's quiet symphony punctuated with the snores of those dogs contentedly enjoying the calm. No squirrels to distract. No thunder to disrupt.
D. K. Wall:Mountain folks have more names for rain than a hound has fleas. A gully washer will rearrange your driveway. A frog strangler comes down so hard, the frogs file a complaint. A toad floater is about the same thing, only the toads are better swimmers. And when it's barely coming down at all, it's just spittin'.
D. K. Wall:This was none of those. This was what we call a rocking chair rain. Not hard enough to worry about. Not light enough to ignore. Just right for sitting still and doing absolutely nothing about it.
D. K. Wall:The wildlife seemed to agree. The squirrels had called a ceasefire and retreated to whatever squirrels go to to stay dry, which I suspect is somebody's attic and it better not be mine.
D. K. Wall:The owls had gone silent. In their place, the tree frogs tuned up one at a time at first and then the whole choir as if the band director had passed out sheet music.
D. K. Wall:There is something about rain on a metal roof that reaches back into memories. We'd get caught by a shower while mowing my grandfather's field and pull the tractor into his barn.
D. K. Wall:The cooling engine ticked in rhythm with the rat a tat tat on the tin overhead. The smell of hay and dirt and old equipment hung in the air as we waited, feeling safe and snug, for the rains to end so that we could get the work done before supper.
D. K. Wall:Sitting on this porch decades later, I felt it again. Not nostalgia exactly, just the same certainty that for a little while, everything was right where it belonged.
D. K. Wall:And as I often do in moments like that, I picked up a pad of paper and a trusty pencil, honed the tip into a writing sword, and scribbled.
D. K. Wall:This week's musing is the product. Nothing dramatic. No plot twist. No rants. Just appreciation for a quiet evening of rain.