Was it praying, dancing, begging or bargaining?

Whatever, it’s raining. We got a good rain a day or so after my last story (written last weekend, but not posted until 7/24), and have gotten rain somewhere around town almost every day since. By late morning, the sky is filling with wonderful, promising cumulus nimbus and by afternoon, the sky is darkening to the north or southeast. Just about dinner, the thunder rolls and somewhere around town, the rain patters.

Driving around town, the roads are adorned with puddles, reflecting sunlight like so many small jewels.

And it’s amazing how quickly living things respond. Where the color palette was brown, brown and more brown not 2 weeks ago, suddenly and within 2 days of the first rain, the road edges and the yards that had been cut were turning green. After a few serious rains, even the fields are greening up. Suddenly the desert willow and the Mexican bird of paradise are standing up with fresh color. Even the raw, bare ground at our place is showing new life. I could see the change from the house. When I was walking the property the other day, I found a baby barrel cactus poking through the ground – with 2 tiny pink flower buds about to pop.

Today, I was working at the new house, caulking. The storm was approaching – I could hear the thunder getting closer. Because I was downstairs, I didn’t have a view of the sky to see lightning. They say you can tell how close the storm cell is by the length of time between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder. Well, by damn, that cell was right overhead because I actually heard the lightning and felt the thunder, and it almost knocked me off the ladder. It went from drip to downpour in an instant and continued to pour for about ½ hour. The storm moved off to the Burros and the sky showed blue for a bit. I went out to take some pictures of the water flow down the driveway and around the house so that we would have a really good idea of where we need to do water management. Went back to work. Next thing I knew it was thundering again, and once again, a downpour. I stopped and went upstairs to watch the rain patterns, feel the wind and listen to the sounds of the new house as it reacted to its baptism.

When this second storm moved off, I stopped and cleaned up for the day. I went out on the porch – imagine that, the side porch is roofed with beautiful douglas fir beams and ponderosa pine ceiling – and looked and listened to PA creek, now a real, roaring water flow below the house in the arroyo. Packed up and pulling out, I wondered what I’d find at Rocky Creek. Yes, there really is a Rocky Creek, hence the name of our road, and it crosses the road between our house and leaving. Sure enough, water was boiling up along the edges and flowing across the roadway. My dilemma: we’re always told not to drive across a flooded roadway if you can’t see the bottom. But I knew at least one large vehicle had crossed not too long before I left the house and I could clearly see tire tracks through the mud edging the water flow on the other side from where I was and going the other way. If I’d been in the Volvo, there’s no doubt: I would have turned around and gone back to caulking. But I was in the truck and I have 4x4, so what the hell. If he could, I could. So I did. It wasn’t even exciting. I guess that’s a good thing.