Random musings on my vagabond existence in the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania and wherever else life takes me.
After two weeks of scorching heat and drought here in northeastern Pennsylvania, rain finally arrived yesterday evening, much to the relief of the area’s denizens.
I was sitting in the house attempting to get some work done when the storm moved through. I had been watching the progress of the front through the course of the day on my phone WeatherBug app, hoping against hope that the storm wouldn’t pass us by and that we would finally get some much-needed rain.
It’s been so dry around here that the Redpointe maple tree I planted a year and a half ago is starting to show a few early turning leaves. I made the mistake of doing some additional landscaping a few weeks ago just before the heat wave arrived, and I’ve had to give the newly planted bushes a twice-daily watering just to keep them alive.
The only positive of this recent drought, if you can call it a positive, is that the pace of the lawnmowing and yard work has slowed down, which is good only because I haven’t much felt like doing it.
I don’t do well in the heat, especially when you throw humidity into the mix. I get sluggish and irritable. My energy levels drop with every tick higher of the thermometer. My writing doesn’t flow as well. Nothing flows as well.
I suppose that’s an in-built response—Nature telling me I need to slow down and preserve my energy, much like the trees and bushes do when they fold up their leaves when stressed by the high heat and drought. But I don’t like it. I like being productive. I like getting things done.
Cassie, too, has been affected by the recent heat wave. She’s not as interested in going out for walks during the day and wants only to drink water and lie around the house, which is not something I’m used to seeing from my Energizer Bunny German Shorthair Pointer.
So I was relieved to hear the first rumblings of thunder yesterday evening as I sat in the living room with Cassie next to me on the couch. The sky darkened as ominous-looking clouds rolled in from the west and obscured the view of the mountain.
A few raindrops hit the deck and then stopped. C’mon, I thought. We need a lot more than that.
Then the flood gates opened. The rain came down for a good couple of hours, and it was, as storms go, a beautiful one. There were no damaging winds to bring down branches and spew litter across the yard—just rain, blessed rain. I could feel the earth soaking it in.
As I sat listening to the rain, I realized how much I missed it over the past couple weeks. There is something profoundly soothing about the sound of the rain. I turned off the TV just so I could hear it drumming on the roof, and when I went to bed, I got the best sleep I’ve had in days.
This morning, I awoke as if to a different world. The birds were singing. The temperatures had dropped twenty degrees, the humidity had cleared out, and the air was refreshing as a mountain stream. I threw open the doors and windows to sight of the mountain enveloped in mist.
As I stepped outside with Cassie for our morning walk, I felt rejuvenated. The trees, the bushes, the grass, the birds: everything felt fresh and new, uplifted by the blessing of the rain like coming out of a church on Sunday morning. I felt like doing a jig right there in the yard.
Cassie, too, was rejuvenated by the storm. She did a happy zoomie about the yard and ran off to chase bunnies.
My energy was back, and when we came back into the house after our half-hour walk around the property, I was ready to get back down to work.
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