“leafless trees dripping – autumn rain”
Last night I fell asleep to the sound of rain and this morning I woke to it. When I went to get the papers, I was surprised at how warm the day felt. I expected that damp chill which seems to find your bones. The rain stopped for a bit but has started again, and I can watch it fall through the den window. Gracie’s just came in and her coat is all wet. The ground is strewn with leaves brought down by the wind and rain. It gives the yard the look of fall.
When I was a kid, I loved it when the street gutters were filled with leaves. We didn’t walk on the sidewalk. We preferred the gutter route. The brown leaves crinkled when you walked through them and some broke and split when you kicked them into the air. We’d send leaves and pieces of leaves all over the street. Sometimes we’d pick up handfuls of leaves and throw at each other, laughing the whole time. We’d spend the rest of the walk taking pieces of leaves out of our hair. We never did it going to school, only coming home.
Loving rainy days dates back to my childhood. I’d come home from school soaked by the walk through the rain then I’d usually change into my pajamas, no need for playclothes on a rainy day. During the rest of the afternoon, my brother would watch TV while my sisters played together. I’d go to my room and read. It was private time not easy to find in a small house with four kids. I always felt cozy, and I still think sitting inside on a rainy day with a good book is a cozy and warm way to spend an afternoon.
During the rainy season in Bolga, the storms were so magnificent I’d always watch. First the winds came, and they were so strong they bent tree tops almost to the ground. I’d hear thunder and sometimes even see the lightning. Then the rain would start. It never started small. The sound of the rain was a roar as if I were standing near a waterfall. The ground would run with rivers of water. If I were teaching, I’d have to stop as the sound on the tin roof was so deafening no one could be heard. That sound is still one of my favorites of all sounds, and I was lucky enough to hear it again on my trip. It rained twice when I was in Bolga, and I stood and watched just as I used to do so long ago. I was under an overhang, and I was safe and dry just as I was when I was a kid in my bedroom.
Explore posts in the same categories: UncategorizedTags: Bolga, leaves, leaves strewn, rainy day, rainy season, reading, Street gutter, walking home from school
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October 13, 2011 at 12:56 pm
That’s a much more peaceful view of the rain that most of my childhood in west Texas brought me. We seldom seemed to be greeted by gentle rain.
The huge drought of the ’50s (’48-’57) brought disillusionment and migration from the country and lost farming/ranching jobs to somewhere that folks could make a living in a city. During that time, when rain came, it would be preceded by thunderheads almost reaching to the stratosphere!
The leading edge of this kind of bombastic display of nature was usually set by the sky turning green and hail or tornadoes and the rain came in bursts that caused flash floods on the dry, packed soil. I recall several times where the hailstones were 4-6″ deep after banging and smashing everything in sight. They didn’t last long in the 100-degree heat, but they left lasting memories in me. They always made me apprehensive until the rain proved itself to be gentle.
Shortly after I moved to Austin in 1970, I went back to my hometown of San Angelo to find that in June, all the trees were leafless. They had had a gigantic hailstorm that stripped the trees bare and opened up the roofs with SHARDS of ice like falling icicles piercing the roofs and sometimes making their way all the way to the floors inside the houses! That is some BAD ICE. The leafless trees looked incongruous, since the lawns were bright green from the recent rain.
Now that we are in the SECOND huge and protracted drought in a hundred years, I’m still a little apprehensive that even the south Texas rains may turn furious at any corner in time.
I’m glad you have such gentle fall rains, Kat. Pax…
October 13, 2011 at 10:13 pm
Rick,
I can’t imagine rain so destructive, and I can’t even remember the last time I saw hail. The Cape has soil which just sucks up the rain. The occasional problem is some streets flood because we have no sewer system. It’s a wait until the rain stops so the ground can take in all that rain.
We have a gentle rain often, when walking in the rain barely gets you wet. Toiday was both heavy and gentle. Right now the night is damp and foggy, and more rain is coming tomorrow.
We have had dry summers but never the drought you have and are living through.
October 13, 2011 at 7:52 pm
It’s a hot summer day, and I don’t even wish to take Jewels outside. The tomatoes are ripe in OCT! Just in time for Halloween. Not much to rake around here. We seldom get thunder storms here, but when we do it kinda makes me homesick for that intense rain storm. Of course, I deplore driving in the rain, as I many years ago I had a large truck plow into me. People hear do not know how to drive in the rain– they don’t slow down, they pretend it’s sunny. Well, when it’s not hot and the rain falls I’ll be complaining about the rain. I love the words safe and dry. Or just safe.
Limply Waving,
Lori
October 13, 2011 at 10:15 pm
Lori,
Today was rainy all day but was still warm, is warm now too. I just got home and opened windows.
I don’t love driving in the rain but I do it anywhay. What I don’t like is being behind a giant truck with its backwash. It makes it so difficult to see.
I love the smell of a summer rain!
Waving back!!