Thunderous Applause

So much for complaining about the heat and the lack of moisture. From my complaining maw to nature’s cherubic sense of humour; did we ever get rain! Without any warning whatever the skies collapsed and rioted sending oceanic waves over us, before we even realized what was happening, last night. And here we thought it was merely a locomotive coming through the area, sans track.

Our senses were so dulled with relaxing after a day's busyness, that rain swept through half of the breakfast room before we sprang to attention, belatedly shutting the sliding doors, racing upstairs to deal with the windows. Result: rain aplenty as it continued to pour for hours. I’d been speaking with my daughter who lives an hour west of us when the rain hit here; she was describing the drenching they’d had hours before.

And on Monday, same thing; our granddaughter told me at four that it was pouring there, while we were still drenched in sunshine, and two, three hours later there was one !boom! And instantly down came the deluge. Not complaining about lack of rain any more, understandably. Not that we were in drought conditions, but that given the high humidity and day after day of temperature highs in the 30s, rain would bring relief.

The creek in the ravine is responding to the deluge, running high and burbling over all the detritus that has collapsed into it, especially from the sides that have caved in, the last few years. By the time we got into the ravine, though, it was semi-cloudy, steamy, with sun peeking out now and again, and although everything was drenched, all the flowering plants looked dreadfully pleased with their bath.

Cinquefoil with its softly pale yellow is more in evidence now, and pink clover flowering, a powerhouse of size and colour beside the paler, smaller white clover. American bittersweet is winding its coils around tree trunks and any other tall-growing shrubbery. The fragrance of the bedding grasses is almost overwhelming, sweetly enveloping us by the side of the trail. Daisies, buttercups, hawkweed and fleabane flaunt their summertime splendour.

Amazingly, we've already discovered some tiny flashes of red close to the ground. Raspberries, not strawberries, growing low in tiny plants, much like the mostly non-productive ground blackberries that cluster in the shade under pines that lazily produce one or two little berries of a season. The thimbleberries, with their large bright pink flowers will mature into thumb-size edible red caps in time, and the shrub blackberries now flowering in profusion will produce fruit as well.

Damselflies disported themselves over the roiling creek, seeking out insect prey. We applauded their efforts and spurred them on to greater ambitions, as we swatted those dratted tiny black mosquitoes that love to delve deep into our tender flesh. I'd put on some of Avon's after-bath oil to dissuade them and I'm convinced it works, but they're blood-thirstily determined and get to me through the thin layers of clothing worn in this summertime heat.

Song sparrows and robins and cardinals sing sweetly aloft, their songs following us from one point in our roundabout trek to another. The robins no doubt delighted that the soil everywhere is completely drenched, bringing up earthworms for their delectation. It never ceases to amaze us, the fire-engine red of the berries developed so early in the season, by the red baneberry plants, their bright insouciance belying their deadly potential.