The Great Wide Open IV- Some Like it Wet

Rain.

It doesn't matter how many people tell you about it, or how emphatic or dramatic their telling of it may be, until you witness half an inch of rain in less than an hour in what is usually a dry-as-bone desert, you can't really believe it.

Observations:

There are more low areas on a seemingly flat property than one may think. 

The low areas can hold more than four inches of standing water.

This is important as the door starts at 4.5 inches.

Metal roofs make lightning more exciting.

Continuous lightning and thunder really do mean the storm is centered above you.

The neighbors house is the same color as rain, or close enough to disappear into it.

Frogs, like humans, think the carport is a great place to stay dry. 

Rains Come. Slopes Fail.

Slide.

Over Memorial Day weekend a massive, miles-long landslide occurred in a remote area of back country wilderness in Colorado. Three people are missing. The slide came down with enough force to overrun several hills before coming to a stop and the resulting deposit of debris is estimated to be more than 200 feet deep in places. The slide left behind a near-vertical escarpment, a cliff of exposed and saturated soil and rock. There is a high likelihood of another slide. Three people are missing.

The media is interested in this story because of the human element, not because of the spectacular magnitude of the event itself or what we might learn from it. I suppose that it is fair enough. Still, all of the decisions moving forward, whether or not to send in search crews and when, how many resources to put into such a thing, how much further risk of human life to take, are informed and tempered by our understanding of the phenomenon itself. How and where and when will all be answered by what we think we know of hills and slopes and water. Perhaps we should tend to our understanding of such things.

Under The Cover Of Pines

Rain.

The rains have come.  They arrive this year, unlike the previous few, with a thud, a heavy settling of clouds low in the valley. They come in torrents, more rain than we have seen in any September in a hundred years. I am glad for them.  Autumn is my favorite time of year with its late harvest abundance and brilliant displays of color.  I love the challenge of making something other than Jack O Lanterns with my pumpkins, the delight of finding a new patch of mushrooms, and the Aspen, golden and lean.  I am glad to witness these passages, strange birds only passing through, wildflower stands disappearing into duff, antlers, fully realized. I am glad to be reminded of my own passages, and to find myself whole and on the other side, I take the rains as a sign of more big things to come.

Like what you are reading?  Then support the Kickstarter for my book Girl Gone Wild- On Being a Woman in the Wilderness.  Thanks!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1731666363/girl-gone-wild-a-guide-to-being-a-woman-outside?ref=city

Photograph by:
www.rubygonewild.com

Neap Tide

Rain.

The rain drives.  The wind howls.  Inside fevers rage against a final flu, the last of the season arriving in the early days of spring.  Outside, an ambulance arrives to take away an elderly neighbor.  The mail stands in tall stacks, sorted and ignored.  There are probably bills in there, important, time dependent things that should be addressed.  A good friend calls to say her life is on fire, there is no help to offer her, only an ear, a nod, a gentle cooing.  

Life has a way of pressing itself upon us, flattening us down, stretching our time, patience, and good humor.  It is important in these times to remember that like the rain, they come in bands, great stretches of gray.  This is not the new state of things, there is no permanence in this malaise.  Like the rain, this too shall pass.

Listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tul8_l0eAHc

Photo Courtesy of:

www.rubygonewild.com