Tag Archives: rain

April Rain and Mud

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It rained all day. Roads got muddy. Sky were gray. April. A cold rain. Not the kind to spend the day in. Not a summer rain that ends in sun. At night, after the rain stopped, it froze. Mud got icy.

I walked to the river. It ran high. Water gushed under the bridge and under the extra culverts installed a few years ago. Spring rains would flow over the road. They don’t now. They flood the field on the other side.

The fields all along the river were flooded. Shallow ponds formed. Geese and ducks swam and fed. They avoided the river. It flowed too fast. I tried to see what kind of ducks they were. I saw some mallards. The rest hid behind vegetation.

Despite the rain, song sparrows kept singing. I could not hear them as well as other days. Rain muffled their songs. I had a hood on. My boots sloshed on the road. A phoebe, finally back for spring, tried to sing as well.

When I turned back, rain hit my face. There was not much wind, but I walked into it. I pulled my hood lower. Rain fell harder. I looked down again toward other flooded fields. A kestral perched on a leafless ash tree. Its feathers were soaked. I would say it was not perturbed but it seemed to be waiting. I walked past.

I hung my rain jacket to dry. I listened to rain pelting the roof. The lawn, not yet really awake, oozed. Snow lingers in the shadowed spots. It won’t last long. I picked up a book and disappeared.

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March in February

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A week ago we had snow. This photo was taken up in Stowe where there was even more snow, but still, we had over a foot on the ground here in the valley. We skied around the field. We sledded down the hill. There was enough snow to simply fall backwards and feel the poof of a soft landing. Then it got warm.

Yesterday it started getting warmer. It got up to seventy degrees by early afternoon. In February. What gives with that? We had a flood watch. The snow kept melting. Then it rained. The fields all around us started to flood. It was wet. The river ran high. I swore a heard a Killdeer but I couldn’t find it. I did hear Red-Winged Blackbirds. Lots of them. This is the earliest they have been back since we have lived in this house.

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Just after dark it started to snow. The temperature dropped from a high of 70 to just above freezing. By morning things were crusty and frozen. The mountains had a fresh coat of white. The wind picked up. It was a cold, raw day, more seasonal than yesterday.

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I went birding on the lake. I saw lots of ducks and geese. I was dressed for it, but still, in that fierce wind I got cold. I drank coffee on the way home and felt the warm sun through the windshield.

The sun is higher now. It keeps climbing every day. Soon the warm days will be more common. Will we get more snow? Is winter really on the way out? This is March weather. Usually February is just winter. March is the transition month. Are we really going to have  spring before March even arrives? It could be a fluke, but the patterns suggest otherwise. I love spring, but really, I miss winter. And I don’t think its coming back.

Rain Window

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A couple days ago I went out in the afternoon to look for birds. One of my goals this year has been to try to go birding every day. Sometimes I catch an owl or two in the early morning. Other days I go walk for a couple of hours. I hadn’t found many birds the other day as it was raining all day plus, you know, work. The rain had let up a bit, and it was going to get dark soon, so out I went.

As soon as I left the house, that rainless window started to close. A few drops fell, then more, and pretty soon it was full on raining. I went anyway. I didn’t go far–just down the road to the bridge over the river. I found some Blue Jays, Chickadees, a White-Throated Sparrow, a couple Juncos. It wasn’t a stellar birding expedition, but I got it in. By the time I got back home I was pretty soggy.

It rained yesterday most of the day. We need it. It has been a dry summer and early fall. We have been afraid our well might run dry. It never has before but we have never had such a dry stretch. These past few days should help. Looking out at Camel’s Hump and the Green Mountains south of there, I can see snow up high. I saw a few cars today with snow piled on their roofs–three inches or so. Full on autumn.

My daughter and I ran a 5K this morning. She has wanted to do them as often as possible this fall. She has run a 5K four weekends in a row. I have run the past three with her. It was forecast to be raining this morning, temperatures in the 40’s, super windy. We had the low temps and wind but no rain. It was a beautiful morning–snow up high, leaves still orange and red–if chilly. Apparently not everyone thought so. There were a grand total of seven runners. I feel like a fair weather runner sometimes but sheesh.

Those 5K’s are getting scarce now that the weather has turned. We can squeeze one in the next couple of weekends. We plan to do one on Thanksgiving day. But then it will be hard to find organized events, at least around here. We got lucky this morning and hit the window right to avoid the rain. Sometimes that happens. Gray skies, blue skies, it’s all beautiful with the other fall colors. Rain or sun, I will keep getting out there. My daughter wants to do those 5K’s and someone needs to do them with her. And I need to get in those birding days.

Only 71 more days and I will have done some birding every day in 2016. I need to think about goals for next year. I will have some kind of birding goal again. And 2017 will bring a running goal as well. Whatever I decide they need to get me out there, whether I hit the rain window or not.

Classic November

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I walked outside after a day meeting with students and felt the rain on my face. It wasn’t a hard rain, or a cold rain. It was not a driving rain, or the rain that comes from tall summer thunderheads. It was a gentle, sporadic rain. It was an unpredictable rain. Walking to the car and then driving and then walking again, the rain came down in bursts. Sometimes it fell with gusto, other times like a whisper.

Gray clouds filled the sky. Then, suddenly, they fell away and the sun seemed too bright. I squinted. Then smiled. It was a typical November day. I started the day with a coat and shed it later in the day once I started moving around. The clouds swirled around and came back. Then it rained again.

The day was warm. Our thermometer at home has been stuck at 21. Odd. The temperature was in the 50’s, even long after dark. My son and I bounced around on the trampoline in the mostly-dark, under clouds, until rain fell once more. It tickled us then started to tap us, then got downright pokey. So we left it outside.

Now, children in bed, the hour late, the rain falls heavily. It drums against the roof. I sleep best, perhaps, when it rains, when I am warm and dry while the world gets soaked. One June night I slept in a tent, alone in the Vermont mountains, on one of the darkest nights I have experienced, while the rain scattered across the nylon roof. I slept well that night. I expect that this November night, my window just over the porch roof where the rain sounds loudest, blankets pulled snugly around me, I will sleep well again.

Marsh Wren, Rain

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IMG_2682Beyond the glass of the window, the rain falls hard. I can see it against the dark green of the maples, the sumac, the white birch. Streams fall from the eaves. I can hear the pounding of the falling water on the porch roof. Coffee in hand, wearing a dry sweatshirt and shorts, I feel calm, content. I am warm. I have no worries. My daughter still sleeps. My son reads on the porch. My wife is out walking, happy to be in it.

This morning I tried to find a Marsh Wren. I had yet to find one this year and it is Sunday. Sunday means I can go to the marsh on Route 116 to listen. Morning is the best time to go and on weekdays, even Saturday, traffic obscures the sounds of the marsh. Sunday, early, is the time to go. There were a few other cars, but not many, passing as I watched and listened. I had a window without rain for about 25 minutes. I heard and saw many wetland birds. I watched three Green Herons fly overhead. I listened hard for the Grasshopper Sparrow I heard there last year. The nearby field had just been mowed so any Grasshopper Sparrows had left. I heard my Marsh Wren.

We will head north later today to Montreal, to watch France play Korea in the Women’s World Cup. It will be an exciting day in the city. At the moment, however, the day is peaceful and quiet. The rain drums, the House Wren in the spruce sings his bubbly song, a Meadowlark whistles out in the field. Soon I will need to gather things for our trip to Canada, but for now, that second cup of coffee needs to go down before it gets cold. Plus, the rocker on the porch needs company. I don’t want to be the one to let it down.

Rainy June Days

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IMG_0481It is sunny and warm this morning. It feels like summer. The sun is up, the air is humid. A Cardinal belts out his whistled song. The meadow grass bows. Across the road, the flood waters recede. It has rained for several days now, sometimes coming down hard. The river rose, then rose higher, then spilled into the fields.

My son and I wandered out into it a couple days ago. We chased frogs. They sang loudly enough to hear them across the field, but when we approached closely they clammed up and stayed hidden. Too shy for mammals I guess. We tromped through the new swamp, my cracked mud boots filling with water. We bushwhacked through the stand of willows, getting scratched and soaked. It was a blast.

Yesterday morning I wandered out to see how much flooding occurred. The field around the river with filled, although I have seen it higher. Water did not cover the road. Mallards swam far out, dabbling in the grasses for slugs. A Great Egret flew in later, wading through the pond, seeking out those frogs we heard. Maybe it would have better luck. A Great Blue Heron arrived while we ate dinner on the porch.

Already the water has dropped. The river will be within its banks today. Rain will likely fall again tomorrow. Thunderstorms will pop up more than once this month. June is here, and she is wearing summer. She looks lovely.

Looking Good Around Here

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Self portrait. 6:00 AM.

Self portrait. 6:00 AM.

Spring is pretty much here at this point. A lot of folks are saying it is finally here but come on. It is here. That is enough. Here, where the field slopes up from the river, the fields are greening. The flood waters have receded, at least this far from the lake. The house wren is back, happily singing in the old Christmas tree farm. White crowned sparrows are pecking away at the remainders from the bird feeders. The sun rises earlier each day.

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In some places, daffodils have faded to brown. Ours are just blooming. We still have apple blossoms and lilacs to look forward to smelling. We were in California recently. In Santa Barbara we smelled a garden full of thousands of roses, of scores of colors and shapes. It was an olfactory delight let me tell you. Roses won’t be blooming here for a while. Green has just arrived, yellow in its heals. Other colors are on the way.

Savannah Sparrow enjoying the spring day

Savannah Sparrow enjoying the spring day

Each day things get a little more beautiful. Rain has fallen the past couple of days. It has not fallen all day but on an off. Things get wet and the sun comes out and everything shines. Then it rains again. Water hammers the porch roof, then the solar panels start making kilowatts again. Then drips fall off my hat brim. Rain gives me a lens to look through–real and metaphorical. Wordsworth said “The world is too much with us,” that, when it comes to nature, we “are out of tune;/It moves us not.” But the savannah sparrow singing over the new grass, and the rings of raindrops in the puddles, and the buds bursting from the maples, all those, as he put it, “make me less forlorn.” I keep my heart yet.

Raw Weather

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My daughter was sick this morning so I ended up spending the day at home with her. The day started cloudy and the rain started slowly, but it kept falling all day. It was some raw weather. We walked out in the afternoon to meet the school bus (at least all of us did not stay home) and to get some air; by then it was really coming down. I noted several times today how wet it was outside. It was some serious rain.

After dinner we took a walk to see the river. Sometimes the road floods when the river gets high enough. That was not the case today but I will not be surprised if water flows over the road tomorrow. It was flowing high and fast.

IMG_3333There were a couple of mallards swimming around the bend. I guess they don’t mind the wet. A neighbor stopped and we chatted about the flooding. Sounds like some places are really underwater. He mentioned a police scanner report of a truck up to its mirrors getting pulled out by a tractor. Ouch. The rain is washing against the house right now as the light fades. It is chilly and soggy and windy. Not a good night to be sleeping out. Like I said–raw weather.

Weather This Week

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Is this really going to get washed away by rain?

Is this really going to get washed away by rain?

Anyone can talk about the weather. It is a universal conversation. In New England it is more of a conversation topic than in some other places. Santa Barbara-ites probably don’t have as much passion about the weather as we do here in Vermont. They still discuss it, I am sure, just not as much. But is hard not to talk about it when it gets so crappy changes so drastically. So here is my mini-conversation with you and me about the weather, only I am doing all the talking here.

I love weather. One of the things I love about living here is that it does change. It is sometimes hard to believe that the same landscape that has bare trees and gray skies and brown fields can host singing meadowlarks and blooming daisies and puffy cumulus clouds, that a stinging sleet can be replaced a few months later by a gentle warm rain. I mean, how could I not be amazed by that when it is so amazing? Winter, however, is the hardest season. I don’t mean to say that winter is difficult because it is cold, or the days are shorter, or the sun doesn’t shine as strongly. Those things are a challenge to some degree, sure, but it is the snow that pulls out the emotions in me.

We had a snow day last Friday. This is a huge hassle for me. I work in schools, so with school cancelled I had to call it a day as well. This means I have to reschedule things when I have few, or often no, days to reschedule them. It means more work and missed work and generally a nuisance all around. But we had a snow day. A snow day is the coolest, most awesome thing around. Lots of snow falling and making things beautiful and brightening the world and filling in all the cracks and crevices so we can play in it? That is just the best. So it is a pain but it is the greatest thing ever. That is what I mean by pulling out the emotions. Love and hate it, that kind of thing.

Once the snow is cleared from roads and walkways and doors, things get back to normal for the most part, but then we still have snow on the ground. This means snow forts and skiing around the field and snowballs tossed at the kids walking down to meet the bus and, again, the beauty of it all. I love the snow, and so does everyone else in our cozy house. When we have snow we are all happy about it. But guess what? Tomorrow or the next day it is going to rain. Now, I love rain. I love a warm summer rain or a cold autumn rain or a good thunder shower. But I do not like rain when it threatens to soak into and wash away my precious snow. It means first slush and then ice and no more snow forts or skiing around the field or snowballs. It means brown crust and slippery walking. I do not like rain after snow.

Winter is for snow, not for rain, at least around here. Rain in March, I can handle. I mean, winter has to end sometime and I can deal with that. But it is February. We should be getting more snow. I want to be able to ski out my door every day. The forecast calls for rain and then freezing temperatures. Ouch. No snow on the horizon.

Until another day. I am sure we will get snow again. I can’t really complain. Weather is just weather, not something to gripe about. I can dislike some of it and feel OK with that. It is a waste of energy to complain about the weather. I am just letting you know how it makes me feel in this case. Most of the time I love the weather, whatever it is. When it gets to 10 below zero I say bring it–if it is going to be that cold then why not 20 below? Wind is an audio delight, lightning is exciting, heat makes the tomatoes grow faster. But rain on top of snow, followed by a freeze? That just shouldn’t be allowed.

Rain?

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So far this fall–winter as of today–we have had one decent snowfall. We were away, in Florida of all places, when that snow fell. By the time we got back it was pretty much gone. Today it rains.

The winter solstice usually offers more than this weather. We did have snow flurries this morning but now it warm enough for things to simply be wet.  That is just no good.

Ski areas are in a bind. They have made snow and some have been open with a trail or two, but mostly, the season has been a dud so far. We were hoping to ski the day after Christmas. That won’t happen.  The high school in town has a sign out front with general notices. Last weekend: “Nordic meet cancelled.” So much for skiing.

There is a small chance we might get snow in the next week. I won’t count on it.