12 June 2009, Waterville Valley, N.H.

Huge billowing white clouds formed the lower story, the more elevated clouds rent and ripped, (darker grey-white), by the prevailing winds. Roughly 25% of the sky turning clear and blue. A welcome contrast to the wind and rain earlier in the day. Seemed the forecast of rain events, thunderstorms, might be suspended. Where the sun shone, however briefly, the heat was palpable, after the week's cool temperatures.

Rain started early evening, yesterday. It was torrential overnight, thrashing the cottage roof, its windows. It continued well into the morning. We hardly anticipated a clearing sky. Nature disposes her whims with no consultations, surprise being the key element in her relationship with all growing things. Let alone all sentient beings. Which we conceitedly believe we qualify as.

We barely dared hope for a break to enable us to venture on a short hike with our little dogs, before hauling them on hours of physical inactivity, driving to satisfy our cravings to prowl Antique Alley. Red-winged blackbirds in the marsh, among the reeds. Trees in the forest dripped ceaselessly. Where yesterday the forest floor had been relatively dry, it was now beyond sodden, the undergrowth drenched, the trails mush.

A preternatural light infused the area, closed in by ambient trees and their green canopy, dripping excess. No blue sky here, but the closed environment of a deep forest. Greens enhanced by the wet, the dim yet oddly translucent light. The mountain stream roared its ravening haste over rocks and downed trees, frothing its frantic away down the ravined chasm. Deep and cool, the water's onrush.

We stop often to take photographs, unwilling to commit to memory what we know we will forget in the preciously intriguing details. Unwilling to hurry ourselves along this living landscape, this passionate arras describing nature's elements of wind and rain urging growing things to exceed even their own expectations.

A tiny, delicate, red-capped chipping sparrow, exquisitely perfect, turns its attention to the tree-felled bits littering the trail. An equally exquisite chipmunk, oblivious of our presence speeds about, as though electrified by the bizarre splendour of its enhanced environment. Sighting up the stream where a waterfall of splurging waters cascade over immense rocks, a fine mist rises lazily, enveloping the distance in its moist embrace.

Bright, freshly insouciant, the ferns, white-starred bunchberry, elegant white, but mostly pink-hued orchids. Everywhere we look, fresh beauty presents itself, demanding notice, our deepest admiration. We vie with one another for favoured photographic opportunities, snap one memorable scene of perfection after another. Our little companions discover a new world of beckoning scents.

We linger, unwilling to wrench ourselves from one vibrant picture-arresting scene to another. The threatened rain-and-thunderstorm events do not occur. The huge granite outcroppings, the stern cliffs above the roiling stream, glisten darkly brown, mahogany, black. Furred extravagantly with grey lichens, soft-green mosses.

We congratulate ourselves on our good fortune, our exposure to these facets of organic, inorganic opportunism, taking advantage wherever possible, of elemental survival. Transcending that bare necessity toward the luxury of buoyant showiness, arrogant entitlement, the glories of achievement, benevolently sharing with us their grand purpose. We tingle with gratitude, with a sense of very real privilege.

Later, as we proceed toward the concluding events of our afternoon, we have opportunity to witness what locals are capable of adding to nature's bounty of beauty. A serene small lake encircled by cottages, speed boats at rest, lapping at the edges of the lake. An old red, rusted jeep transformed to a garden planter, its soil-filled body bright with pink petunias, spilling over its tired old sides.

Then, the antidote, passing a swampy pond. There, the graceful awkwardness of a Great blue Heron, moving about, turning its head, attuned to the possibilities of the pond producing edible treasures. The scene rescuing the remains of the day. Clouds swiftly reasserting their presence, darkening the sky once more.