Monsoons!

Drenched Sunfower

When the rainfall started last Saturday, Jim and I were sitting down to dinner (stir fry, made largely with zucchini, peppers, and eggplant from our garden).  We traded guarded looks, but said nothing, just in case we might scare the rain away.

Then the rainfall picked up, accompanied by thunder and lightning.  We slid the porch door closed, and went on with our meal.  As I was finishing off my second helping, I slid open the porch door long enough to confirm that the rain was easing off.  So was the electrical storm.

I pushed my plate back, got my umbrella (which dates back to when I still lived in Virginia, over twenty-five years ago; umbrellas don’t get worn out very fast here), and went out to check.  All of the thirty-gallon trash barrels under the downspouts, bone dry an hour before, were overflowing.  I got a bucket, and started transferring water from barrel under the most wildly gushing downspout (the one on the northeast side), and started shifting it to the overflow containers.

Once I adjusted to the temperature and damp, I put the umbrella aside so I could work faster.  Who cared if I got wet?  This was rain!

I was into my rhythm—scoop, turn, dump—when Jim came out and got to work lowering the level of the southeast barrel.  By then, I’d more or less caught up with the torrent from the downspout and, bucket in hand, darted around to the west side of the house.

Once I’d filled the overflow container on that side, I started running buckets of water to our younger trees.  Yes.  It was still raining, but I knew that even just a few inches below the surface our sandy soil would be dry.  Best to replenish the area.

Eventually, we’d filled every container we could spare, storing roughly 200 gallons of rainwater. Then, dripping wet and ridiculously pleased, we came inside.  Later, when the rain had stopped, Jim went out and checked the rain gauge: six-tenths of an inch of rain.

Six-tenths of an inch of rain may not sound very exciting to you, but where I live, that’s a major event.  This was by far the most we’ve had at one time this year.  The runner up was back in late June when, for four very odd days, we apparently traded climates with the Pacific Northwest.  Then our cumulative rainfall for four days was a quarter of an inch.

As I type this, it’s drizzling again.  I find myself wondering if I can find a spare bucket somewhere…  Maybe it’s time to go get rained on again.

I think I will…  And I’ll leave you with a question.  How is this also about an aspect of the craft of writing?