Delicious Like Rain

“A giant thirst is a great joy when quenched in time.”
~ Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

We Thirst for This Rain!

Rain-spotting From My Porch

Mist, Clouds, Moisture

Blue Heron Flies North

Then South

Raspberries Drinking

Leaves Cupping Droplets of Water

Mergansers in the Rain

Pines Among Mist

Ever Hopeful That Dirt Will Bring Flowers & Fruit

Garden Guardian

My Newest Arrangement for the Porch in Time for Rain

Lazily, I lean back against my house beneath the cover of a sloped porch roof, sitting cross-legged and listening to the rain. Nothing else matters in this moment of mist among pines as I feel life drink this delicious cup after a long dry spring.

Bootsy's fur wicks the moisture to fine tips on her outer coat; beneath she is warm, soft and dry. She stands on my thigh, dripping miniscule droplets that write wet and inscrutable script across my thin pants. Like me, she relaxes to the music of the rain sheltered in the cocoon of cool moisture.

Tips of pine trees protrude from mist on the ridge that has welcomed the rain clouds to Elmira Pond. Some may long for sunny days, but I thirst for delicious rain. The sun is radiant, illuminating clouds in light and layers. I know it's still there.

A great blue heron flaps wings like canvas sails and scuds beneath the lowest stratum of clouds, high enough to miss tops of pines. Bootsy settles into my lap, the rain continues and the heron returns. Is this an avian version of playing in puddles?

Tree swallows tumble in the mist, hunting wet insects above the pond. A male hooded merganser preens feathers on the pond log while his lady swims nearby. Ducks like rain. I once heard children sing that while their mother shopped for apples.

Days like this and that refrain pops to mind.

All week I've hustled to plant, encouraged by the promise of weekend rain. Actually, the weather fortune-tellers predicted it last weekend and small thunderstorms fed the idea all week long. Other than a quick drink here and there, I continued to water my seedlings, roses, raspberries and spreading garden.

We all hoped for rain.

So far, buried like treasure in the tilled dirt of two gardens, are my own seeds of hope -- red onions, shallots, garlic, butternut squash, yellow zucchini, green patty pans, pie pumpkins, sunflowers dwarf and tall, strawberry calendula, nasturtiums, snap beans, rattlesnake beans, scarlet runners, peas beneath bamboo and twine tee-pees, beets, salad mix, cherybell radishes, marigolds, ground cherries and even an absurd attempt at a baby watermelon.

Perhaps all hope is absurd.

If we hope for the expected, how is that hope? Hope is for miracles, and nothing is more miraculous than seeds pushed into dirt yielding fruit. 

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” 

~ Albert Einstein

Rain is needed to make the miracles sprout, but I can no more control the rain than I can to train a tree to jump-rope. It feels like a cool refreshment after a week of busting sod. Actually, Todd busted sod, I followed and shaped rows, hills and clusters.

I garden like an artist filling up a canvas -- a splash here, there. What if I blend pole beans with peas or plant flowers behind squash? I fill the ground one day at a time, digging holes with bare toes and sitting idly in warm dirt. Bootsy is my contented companion. No doubt she believes we all should live outside.

I've found her curled up in sunny corners of the main garden and have traced her footprints punched like a trail of holes across the second garden. She watches me weed, mow and water in approval. She rolls beneath my budding roses that I've trellised with bamboo.

Does she await the first bloom like I do?

Perhaps not, but when I linger long outside Bootsy is content enough to sleep hard. I pause and watch her, amazed that this cat is so trusting in my presence. At night I hear coyotes howl in huge numbers. The wolves have remained silent, but this is the time that animals traverse the McArthur Corridor and many predators pass through. By day, in the gardens, Bootsy feels secure.

And so do I. Though today we will refresh in the rain, enjoy the new profusion of flowers I've potted along with my first ever rhubarb plant. Let it rain, let it green.

Tomorrow we plant more seeds and continue to hold out for hope.

Me Lucky Charms

I'm the Redhead With the Shoe & Cigarettes

Neon Green Peat

Moons, Stars & Clovers

Pond is Still Winter White

Horse Trails Attract Fish

It's Bino Season

Ferruginous Hawk

Crows Ignore Their Tree

Me First Lucky Charm of the Season

When I was five, I remember begging my mom for a box of Lucky Charms cereal. Every moon, star and clover was a crunchy mini-marshmallow. That's the cereal I wanted!

Yet, the memory stands out because Lucky Charms tasted like cigarettes. Don't ask me how a kindergartener knew what cigarettes tasted like, but each moon, star and clover made me gag.

Now I know the truth. My mother served it with goat milk. To this day, I can't tolerate even the swankiest of gourmet goat cheese. Goats produce milk laced with burnt tobacco.

As I rediscover the ground of Elmira after its recent release from snow, I'm reminded of me Lucky Charms. Buried beneath winter's icy mantle has been living, breathing peat. It's lurid green would be found among the neons in the crayon box.

A close inspection shows emerging clover pressing up from the peat which is pointy as a kindergartener's hand-drawn star. In my imagination, strands of dry grass curve into imperfect half moons.

My ranch is a Panhandle peatland -- a rare archive of the past. It is a Sphagnum-rich bog and you can see it growing right this moment.

Rains have pounded Elmira at the rate on one inch a day, and forecasters predict a full ten days. They've issued avalanche warnings in the mountains and already mud slides have gummed up roads and tracks. We even had a smattering of mysterious dirty rain to give us a good science debate (it may not be volcanic ash as first reported).

Elmira Pond remains gripped in white slush, although water is pooling like a cup of coffee heavy on the cream. With all the rain, the horse trails look like streams lacing the pond's edge and I watch as fish rise to the surface, seeking their meal since ice sealed them under.

I'm like a little kid, wanting to put on galoshes to chase fish along watery horse trails.

Open water is a beacon to migrating birds. It's like April in February, and I've heard the honking of geese headed north. My binoculars are on my desk and I regularly scan for feathered visitors.

For days, I've seen a flash of white about mid-way up the tall tamaracks west of the pond. Today it landed on the massive power line tower that carries electricity for northern Idaho through our narrow valley.

Turns out to be a hawk. I believe it to be a Ferruginous hawk because it's much whiter than a red-tailed hawk and it is as large as a small eagle.

The snow is gone and so are my excuses to not un-decorate the Crow Tree. Murderous ingrates. They flock past but never stop.

Yet, I did find treasure near the tree with it's lagging ribbon like a gilded tongue. Each year, before the grass overtakes the pad of peat, I search for broken glass. If peat is an archive of seeds and pollens, it also keeps record of human trash.

Today I found a shard of cobalt blue bottle glass -- my first lucky charm of the amateur archeological season.

And I refrained from licking any stars, moons or clovers, having learned that not all treasure tastes as advertised.

Linking up with Abracabadra for Wordless Wednesday. Photos by Charli Mills (except the incriminating cigarette photo -- that was provided by my partner in wading pool crime, my Cuz, Mitch).

War Wagon in the Rain

War Wagon Hitched to Travel (April 2014)

Bus for Workers After the Live Long Day

One of Many From the War Wagon

Fall Colors

Calling in the Workers

Lining Up to End the Day

War Wagon Spread Out

The men have been working on the railroad all the live long day, despite torrents of rain. Elmira, Idaho was once a railroad town where workers lived between the tracks with their families. Many were Italian immigrants.

Today, BNSF hires workers at various hubs with Spokane and Missoula being the closest ones. When the rails need to be repaired or simply maintained, the hubs dispatch the War Wagon. The first photo in today's line up is from April and shows what the War Wagon looks like all hitched up for travel on the rails. Not only does it have the equipment needed, it also trails outhouses.

When the workers come to northern Idaho to work on the tracks, they stay in Sandpoint and bus from there to here. The War wagon stays in Elmira across the road from my house. It's fascinating to watch the equipment and seems how it distracted me on this dark, rainy day, I thought I'd share a look with you.

Friday Morning Rain

Mist Shrouds the Mountain Tops

Pastures Hide Killdeer and Blue Heron

Morning Traffic in the Rain

Wigeons Don't Mind the Wet and Wind

Snow Up High

Turtle Log

Abandoned Pond Nest in Winter

Mist shrouds the tops of mountains as rain drizzles on Elmira Pond. The wind gusts with that hollow window howl that makes me want to curl up beneath a velvety blanket with a good book. It's chilly, but not enough for a fire, yet when the winds whirl mist off the mountains I can see that it's snowing in the higher elevations.

A killdeer is my morning tease. I can hear her shrill cry above the wind at my window, but I can't see her. I look with bare eyes and binoculars. Scanning the pasture, the pond's eastern edge and the overgrown dead grass of the Bluebird Ranch I don't glimpse her movement or flash of white underparts. But she continues to shrill, kill-deeah-dee-dee.

Other than the wind there seems to be no obvious threat to the killdeer's cry. Maybe she's just as bad at singing as I am and only sounds distressed. While I can't see her, I know she's plucking insects from the pastures. It's the favorite food this time of year and I welcome the diners.

Because we run horses here in the summer, our pastures look like they have a winter buzz cut. Fuzzy green new growth is barely showing. It will be another month before there's enough grass for the horses and by then the killdeer babies will have hatched. If there's a nest.

The birds of Elmira Pond are crafty at hiding their nests. This past winter, I stumbled across several of them, amazed that they even existed. The winter winds gusted other nests out of tall pines. Nests can be rebuilt; the builders are good at what they do. I just supply the materials--grass, mud, sticks and even loose strands of my own hair that I toss to the wind, "for the birds."

Blue heron stands across the pond from all the killdeer chatter. Between my vantage point and his, wigeons and geese float in the rain. Birds don't seem to mind. Already there are frogs on the pond--I started to hear peepers this week. At night, I step outside and peepers fill the night with calls. I know when a predator invades Elmira Pond because the peepers go silent. It's eerie when they do. So I feel safe out in the dark when I can hear them.

But this morning, they are potential breakfast. Blue Heron patiently waits like I do, standing still, waiting for that final percolation of the coffee pot. Then I dive in, filling my mug, savoring the heat and aroma as if it were my first taste after a long migratory flight.

The exposed log in the pond--alternately it is the basking spot for many--holds five turtles this morning. I wonder what rain on turtle-shell sounds like and if the turtles enjoy the drumming as much as I do when it pummels the metal roof of my house. Soothing, rhythmic sounds to accompany the wind.

Snow Soup

Rain Dribbles

Sloppy Steps

Buried Porch Steps

A Sliver of Open Water

Rain dribbles down the south windows, and my world blurs. The weather has decided to change up the menu at Elmira Pond, and its serving up a great big bowl of snow soup for the week.

Like a steaming bowl of soup, mist rises from the snow-saturated pastures. Outside, I'm wet from both rising mist and falling rain. My boots slop through several inches of watery slush and melting snow is pooling upon what remains.

Little by little the roof sculptures diminish into rivulets of clear water. Where the roof dumped piles of snow at the bottom of the porch steps has become an icy barrier. Grendel doesn't mind and walks across the heap. Bobo stands at the top of the starirs as if expecting me to move it out of her way.

I try. The shovel moves slush, but not the compressed ice beneath. Grabbing an ax I chop clumsily at the ice. It's no good, or rather I'm no good at the task. We'll just have to rely on melt to get rid of this particular pile.

Standing at the edge of my slushy driveway, I gaze at Elmira Pond. Open water; there it is--a sliver of open water. The first time in months, I can actually see the pond for the body of water that it is. I'm gleeful as a child watching the carnival rides go up at the fairgrounds. I know what it means.

Open water attracts migrating fowl. Snow soup brings ducks. Ringed-tails, woods, harlequins, widgeons, buffleheads, mallards and mergansers. For now, I see flocks winging north, but soon I will see them on Elmira Pond.

Raining Branches and Eagles

Wind Blasts the Pines

Rain Melting Snow into Pools of Silver

Wind Overcomes Rain

Eagles Don't Fly Well in Wind Gusts

Branches Raining Down in Elmira

Branch as Big as a Hybrid Car

And Still He Shovels

Like a Burlington Northern freight train, wind blasts the house on Elmira Pond so hard that the foundation quivers. Wind blowing through pines is usually a succulent sound, but this is banshee-screaming, door-hinge ripping, pine-toppling wind.

After several storms rolled over the Cascades and pounded the Selkirks with a fist full of snow, our roof shed four-foot piles of drift-snow and our driveway became the tundra. Then rain swooshed over with warm, melting drops, pooling snow into swaths of silver puddles and heaping slush back onto the driveway.

Todd is pushing slush, unphased by 60 mph gusts.

Stepping outside, I'm attacked by the plastic chair crouching on the south porch. Untangling it from my legs before we both  trip over the edge, I see an eagle. Flinging the chair to the ground, it somersaults across slush in the mighty wind. The eagle bobs low beneath rain clouds. This is one of those moments where grace seems to disappear. I retreat inside the moaning, vibrating house.

Todd is a machine with a shovel; he doesn't even wobble in the wind.

Clouds break apart, scudding like sailboats attempting to break a world record for speed. The rain stops and I'm mesmerized by the roiling clouds and the return of blue sky like ever-changing swirls of finger paint. Winds screeches so loud at the south door, both dogs lift their heads momentarily before settling back into their nap. Sunshine flashes like lightening from behind bubbling clouds.

Todd is now swinging his shovel overhead.

The eagle that was bobbing in the wind is coursing out of control and Todd takes defensive action. I hustle out the door, fighting to close it when I hear a snap-pop. The eagle has managed to  fly off over the pond, heading to the stand of tamaracks, but now branches are breaking. Most are single boughs, but the 70-foot trio of Ponderosa pines in the front yard begin to rain down branches as big as hybrid-cars.

Two massive clusters, each big enough to be its own tree, crash to the ground. Smaller branches, twig-like in comparison begin pelting my legs like little whips. The wind is so crazy, it's silly. Who ever heard of it raining branches and eagles? Back into the house I scurry.

And Todd finishes moving slush off the driveway.

Join me in sharing a silly story on Sunday with blog host, Everything Susan.