A Rainy Day in Paradise

Aug. 20 - Rain on my Patio

Today is a rainy day in paradise. Florida might not be a paradise for everyone, but it works just fine for me. We seem to have scooted past the scorching hot "dog days of summer" and are now into the intermittent rain squalls. I like this kind of weather. The rain comes down in spurts and keeps the air clean and fragrant with the smell of whatever flowers are blooming at the moment. Today there's a whiff of Gardenias in the air.

I never realized how much I loved rain until we moved away from Florida to live in Las Vegas for several years. There you learn to pray for rain. Then you want to dance and sing in that rain when it does finally arrive. In Vegas it's like no rain forever and then one day it's flash floods. There's no inbetween in the desert. It's a harsh climate of hot, dry, 117 degree weather through the summer months, blustery Santa Ana winds in the fall, maybe a few snowflakes in the winter, followed by some scattered spring rains. Then for a few weeks the desert comes alive with wild flowers.

When we moved to the Texas Hill Country we had even less rain, if that can be imagined. We lived on the top of a hill with a panoramic view of rolling hills dotted with scrub oaks and red cedars and lots of rocks. The rocky soil there is called "hardscrabble" and it's pretty difficult to grow much of anything in it. I had to satisfy myself with pots filled with brightly colored flowers. We had a big covered back veranda so I had potted flowers everywhere.

The only problem with flowers in the Texas Hill Country is that the deer liked to eat them. And since we had a regular crowd of white-tailed deer visiting us on a daily basis, many of my flowers became lunch. I remember one day when a young buck, I named him Seymour after the "Little Shop of Horrors," decided he wanted some of my flowers. I was at the sink washing dishes and through the window saw Seymour standing among some pots of flowers near the front porch. Rushing out, I caught him red-handed with a whole marigold plant in his mouth, the golden marigolds hanging out of one side of his mouth and the roots hanging out the other. I scolded him and he promptly dropped the marigolds and backed away with a very guilty look on his face. Funny thing, I never caught him eating any of my flowers again. That doesn't mean he didn't actually eat some flowers now and then, only that he made sure I wasn't watching.

Anyway, in the 18 months we lived in Texas there was probably only 4 or 5 days of rain all told. A couple of those days the rain was so pitiful it was almost more like spit coming down from the sky. The other days the rain was so torrential it caused flash floods in the valleys. Those of us living on the hilltops just enjoyed the rain.

Now that we live back in Florida I cherish every minute of the rain. Some days, like today, it's a series of 10 or 15 minute rain squalls interspersed with sunshine. Sometimes it's days and nights of rain with no end in sight. Other times it could be weeks or even months before the next good rain storm. So for today all the flowers and trees and other plants are happy. Today I'm happy too.