Summer Rain

September 6, 2013

Lindsay:

Farmers always seem to talk about the weather. And weather in its extremes. The driest year in memory, the coldest winter in the past 20 years, the wettest season ever.

Well, we land-based folks talk about the weather a lot because, for better or worse, it informs a large part of our reality. For us, a cold winter isn't just numbers on a graph, it means more wood in the woodstove, frost damage to tender buds, a late start for the spring crops.

Weather has been the talk of the plateau recently. For this year, late summer has brought with it two large rain storms. Certainly the earliest rain I have experienced since living on the plateau, and from what I gather the earliest rain in Windward's 25 years on this land.

The first storm came in early August. Sheets of water, hurricane-like winds, lightening and thunder. The ground still rock hard from a summer of no rain couldn't absorb the initial drops, and so the water ran along the surface, bringing with it earth and gravel and stones.

The erosion was substantial, new rivulets were carved in the roads, road rock now lies a few feet off the road bed, rocks the size of fists have found new places to rest.

And then last night the rain came again. In the late afternoon the sun gave way to dark clouds and cooler air, the winds picked up and then the drops began to fall. Soon, the roads were rivers once again, and the thunder followed the lightening within the same beat of the heart.

The storm passed but the rain continued through the night and into the morning. A soaking rain. The oaks, whose leaves had become dull in the heat of the summer sun, have regained their sheen. And the smell of mud and musk and mushrooms permeates the clean and crisp air.

The sun is forecasted to return tomorrow. But for now, boots have replaced the sandals, and wool sweaters the cotton t-shirts.

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