It was a long time coming and well worth the wait.
In a 6-hour period from late Monday evening near midnight to early morning Tuesday, about two inches of the life-giving moisture fell in great sheets throughout the area.
That’s more rain than had fallen in the previous 36 days combined.
And it’s not over yet.
“The forecast for your area is for the chance for more rain to return late Saturday into Sunday,” said a National Weather Service official.
“Until then, highs will be in the 70s and low 80s and lows in the 50s, with a chance of fog forming each night,” he noted.
This first good rain aftermore than a month of NO precipitation caught me about to retire with a favorite book in my cabin in the woods west of town.
Great black clouds, laden with moisture, rumbled as the front announced its coming earlier in the evening, and the promise did not go unfulfilled, as it had many, many times before, almost as a tease.
The initial cloudburst around 11:10 p.m. (I glanced at the digital clock when I heard the first drops pounding the roof) summoned me to the screen porch, where I sat and luxuriated in watching this sorely-missed weather phenomenon that transfers moisture from the oceans to the landmasses of the world.
These raindrops were hitting the trees and the ground to a reception of sustained applause, which seemed appropriate.
The harder the rain fell, the louder the applause, until it became thunderous in both a literal and figurative way.
The leaves and the blades of grass had been parched, thirsty beyond what you or I could endure, so crackled with pleasure as they were splashed with a million wet kisses.
A frothy concoction resulted, tiny bubbles celebrating the recharging of the earth’s engine, now revving up to give life where death had been stalking.
It was majestic.
Tiny crowns proclaimed each raindrop’s sovereignty as it hit puddles that were forming where none had existed for more than three million heartbeats, if measured in seconds.
The rains of Hurricane Rita 36 days ago seemed so far away, part of another story in another era, but the memory of trees is long, as long as the tap roots that dove deeper and deeper into dry earth to find water as the long hot summer wore on.
Many trees died during that hurricane, but now the silvery slices of life - dispensed drop upon drop - held out hope for healing those which survived.
Rain is the ultimate healing catalyst - it is not alive, yet nothing can live without its presence.
What the incessant sun and wind and heat had wrinkled, the rain was plumping back into juicy health.
Rain polishes, adding a glistening finish to all it touches, erasing the rough-edged textures that sucked up all light.
Liquid DiamondsThe smell of life refreshed was thick : a slightly pungent aroma of sunburned hay and toasted grass bathed anew.
The wind worked the trees and bushes into a frenzy of flirting, waving to and fro in a come-on to the heavens to open up and give them its best shot.
Afterwards, when the deluge ended, the plop, plop of droplets resembled sweat from the heavenly exertion of all that rain-making.
That which could be renewed - was. That which could not - will be recycled.
Nature wastes nothing.
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