Liking the Rain

Rain, rain, go away // come again another day...

When it rains, it pours...

Rain makes corn // corn makes whiskey...

Raindrops keep falling on my head...

It’s raining cats and dogs...

I love a rainy night...

And many, many more for certain...but I won’t extoll every single rain quote or song lyric here and now...

Life isn't waiting for the storm to pass...yadda, yadda...

Many people don’t care for the rain.  It messes with their plans, it can cause damage, it makes the roads slick, it makes non-drivers stupid, it makes people sad or cranky...in general many just don’t seem to want it.  I get that, but yet, I say bring it on!  First of all, we need it!  No water, no life!  There is so much good from the rain!  And trust me – at the moment where I live, we are seeing a lot of it.  I am certain we had over 5 inches fall in 3 hours last night.  Yes, there was flooding and the typical chaos ensued.  I will admit it’s been a long time since I’ve seen flooding like that.  Ok, that’s not rain...that’s a deluge...and with the report of a newly formed hurricane looming to add to it I say I might need to build an ark.

But regardless, I still like the rain and lightning storms.

Now mind you, I am no stranger to routine flooding.  I grew up in a 250+ year old farmhouse that turned into an island every time it rained 2 or more inches at once.  Between the creek that ran through the side horse field and the even larger creek across the street, that would flood the roadway, the house felt like a castle with its own deceptively devastating moat.  Scary though it was I secretly found it kind of cool.  It was then that I came to understand the sheer power of water.

The awesome thing though was the basement actually had a moat built into it to catch the water that poured in through the old fieldstone foundation.  And I mean moat...not French drain, not weep pipe, not anything you can possibly use in today’s modern houses – I am talking a 2 foot deep (in some spots) 1 foot wide open trench that rimmed the walls in the cellar, the center of which was a thick cement pad, known as a floating floor.  The entire basement was divided by stone foundation into 3 distinct rooms, so you actually had the “front” cellar, the “wine” cellar and “root” cellar.  The last two portions had dirt floors so the trenches there were just enough to divert water to the moat.  And they constantly ran water so the sound of trickling water in the basement was never absent, even in drought years.

The oil furnace and tank were on the concrete floor pad of the front cellar and when the fan would run, it sounded like a sleeping, snoring dragon in there, (at least to my father and me).

But then it would rain...

The rain would awaken the dragon.  I would go down the steps and listen.  Then the sump pump would suddenly kick on, loudly – and scare the hell outta me, even though I was listening for it – sounding like the dragon had awakened growling and snorting...(of course it was the initial draw of the sump pump, then the sound as it cavitated when the water level dropped too low for it).  I would unceremoniously run back up the stairs laughing and write whatever the encounter caused my over-active imagination to believe.

So yeah, I like the rain.

--Rya