Raining today. The skies are a cool grey and the air smells of wet critters and earth.  When outside the perimeter and protection of the buildings in the courtyard, the wind is sporadic.  It seems to be from the northeast - a bit chill.  I imagine it is pulling cold from the frost still in the ground and from what snow that is left.  There are still patches of snow here and there on the property.  Most of them in the road ditch, with a river of water running underneath, like an ice cave with a river running to some underground lake.  Ours are just running to a culvert that directs to someone else's yard. Some patches of the remaining snow are still quite deep - and dirty - especially in the small wood to the back of the property.  The fields are mud. Especially today. Acres of clay mud muck, sucking slooshy oozing swallow your boot mucky mud.  Full of nutrients for all the weeds that are already greening up.

It's a nice day to be inside, reading a book, or writing a blog.  It's an even better day to be outside playing in the running riverlets (I think I made that word up), in the driveway.  A shovel, boots and soon to be wet and cold garden gloves. 

I love the rain.

Today it will wash all the salt and debris from the paved roads.  It will flow in the ditches and across the fields (into the ditches).  It will give sustenance to the new young plants in the fields, forests, gardens and lawns and it will remove the ice cap from the smaller ponds.  The geese and ducks arriving from the south, and the sandhill cranes and the blue herons will find fields ready for planting with new shoots from last year's crops coming up.  Such delicacies and so very necessary for their journeys. The rain will wash us clean from the long and hard winter.  It will invigorate us and will give us all hope that winter has said it's final goodbye.

Did I say, I love the rain?

I wanted to mop the floors today, but will need to wait until night.  The rain will be the glueing agent for boots and dog paws, that will hold only so long as they can reach the kitchen floor, then drop the precious mud and detritus on the wood and linoleum. A fickle glue at best, but enough to make it messy in the house.  I will see worse, I imagine.  Maybe I should open the doors and windows and let the rain come in to wash away the winter that still exists in my house - the close air from closed windows and heated rooms.  What fun that would be.  But alas, my piano would suffer dearly and the wood floors would curl up and get moldy.  They are afraid of rain. But not me.  Did I tell you...

I love the Rain !

Peace!

Lily and Dragn Rock Farm