The Days of Nano, November 2, Part A

November 2, 2014, Thinking about rain

A little rain

It rained again last night and this time I recognized the sound of rain, falling heavy on the skylight and the water pouring over the gutter and onto the tiles of the veranda.  I was awake again.  Was it 5 AM or 6 AM?  It was still night, but Daylight Savings Time had just ended.  I suppose then it was 5 AM.  Why do I have to go through this all the time?  I get so annoyed.

I was thinking also of the sun baked earth and how it had developed deep cracks that spread all over the front lawn.  (For some reason, the front lawn seems dryer than the back lawn.)  The cracks are so deep from the drought and they make it hard to walk without tripping on them. 

But then, we don’t walk on the lawn much.  It doesn’t look pretty or feel fun to walk on or lead to some place more interesting.  It just is.  I would accept weeds if they were green.  I don’t like the dry lawn.  The ground is just sitting in wait - waiting for the rain to come and make it a lawn again.

The rains did come.  They didn’t stay, but their clouds blew over our house and dropped the rain.  I heard it on the skylights and falling on to the patio.  The next morning, the tiles of the veranda were very wet, but there were no puddles.  No puddles.  No running water.  Just the cool wind blowing fresh air in my face.

Our lawn slopes from corner to corner; from northeast to southwest.  When it pours the rain runs down our driveway and to the north side of the house until it’s free to run through our back yard to the drain in that southwest corner that leads to the seasonal creek.  I haven’t seen any rain in that creek for months, maybe even years. 

Once I saw that creek so full of rain that it overflowed the pipe that goes under the street and flowed over the street and across my yard and would have flooded the lower house if my everlovin’ hadn’t gone out and shoveled mud across the bottom of our door to keep the house dry.

We have another creek on the north side of us and maybe three houses down.  It drains a larger area.  I have seen so much rain water in that creek that it overflowed the bridge (an Arizona crossing, which means that it’s designed to let the water flow over when there’s to much rain to go under).  If the water going over the Arizona crossing is too swift and too high, we’re stuck at home until the water goes down. 

When that happens, I go out and take pictures of it.  People don’t believe me when I tell them the bridge to my house is built to take water flowing over it.  A photo helps, but when the water goes over, you can’t see the bridge.  Maybe they could just believe me.

[Add photo of water going over the bridge to my blog.]

Well, you can see that I know what happens when it rains hard, even when it rains moderately.  These last two rains didn’t do that.  I sat up at night thinking about that.  Then I remembered the giant cracks in the super dry earth and I knew what happened.  (Light Bulb)  The rain water flowed into those cracks - as deep as it could go.  The ground had opened itself so the rain could come in and nourish it.  I began thinking of those cracks as more like hands ready to make a funnel and let the water go deep into the ground. 

I’ve lived in snow country and I remember that when the snow melts in the Spring, the ground makes wet squishy noises and becomes very wet.  Wet with the melted snow water.

In both cases the ground is taking a deep drink and holding the water for later.  I like that idea.

So, we’ll know when the earth has had enough and the water flows once more across the lawn and through the back yard to join the water running in the seasonal creeks. 

Everlovin’ went out today to see if he could turn the earth in the garden.  He probably could have done it today, but the rotatiller refused to go.  He said two years ago that he needs a new rotatiller.

Though the wind was chilly, I opened the doors today and let the wind blow through the house.  That fresh clean air smells so good and it smells just fine in my house.  Because we live north of San Diego, I can do that almost any time I like.  I will admit to you that because I’d done that in San Diego, when we moved to snow country, about every month or month and a half, I’d turn off the heat, put on a coat, and open the house to the breeze.  My neighbors thought I was crazy, but I believe that your house fills up with used up air and cooking smells, and the wood smell from the fire place.  If you go outside in the snow, it smells wonderful.  Even the wood smoke smells good, good because it’s freshly burned.  Not old stale smoke.  Why not have your house smell  fresh like the outside air?  Why not just do it because you want to?