I Love a Rainy Night

Ever since I was a little girl, I've loved thunderstorms. I love warm summer rains, I love dry heat lightning, I love the mist that hangs in the air in the spring and the fall, but most of all, I love a good rip-roaring, gully-washing, angels bowling thunderstorm. And yesterday, I got to experience the first big thunderstorm at the new house.

It was fabulous.

The rain and thunder began in the afternoon, coming in several waves of absolute gully-washers; as the old saying goes, it was coming down "like a cow pissing on a flat rock." If there were any leaks in our roof, gaps in our windows, or cracks in our foundation, we would have found them in this rain. (Good news: the only dampness was a small spot in the basement and some water driven in under the garage doors.)

One creature (other than me) who was completely undaunted by the storm was a gray tree frog, who - much like the Carolina wren who sat on the fence and sang for us the other morning - solved the mystery of the chirring sound we'd been hearing in the woods by perching himself on the edge of the pool and yelling his mating call, loud and clear.

He happily sang in the rain all night long, and this morning we found him paddling around in the pool, along with a wood frog, both of which my husband dutifully scooped up and chivvied off into the bushes.

I've already mentioned how much I love watching the birds through our big arched windows, but it didn't occur to me that those windows would also provide a lovely view of rain storms. With the woods right behind, there's no clear view of the sky through those windows, but the flashes of light against the dark trees was just lovely, and the streams of water running down the huge windows made exquisite patterns. From the front porch, where a wide expanse of sky is visible, you can see the direction the storm is moving, and the pond across the street provides interesting acoustics that amplify the rumbles of thunder. It's a completely different feel from experiencing a storm at our old house. In fact, it reminds me of my second-floor apartment a block away from the ocean back in Gloucester, where I could watch and hear storms moving across the sky over the sea, feeling like I was jutting up into the angry clouds. There's a sense of wildness and power here, as there was there, that was missing in our cozy suburban neighborhood.

I love feeling so close to nature here, because of both the constant parade of bird and animal visitors and the closeness of the sky and the weather. With so much less light pollution here, the sky is more full of stars than I've seen it outside of secluded campgrounds and my stint in the bush country of Zimbabwe. I feel more part of the world here. I love the world here.

I love a rainy night for reminding me just how much I love it here.

Well, I Love a Rainy Night

Or, in this case, I love a rainy morning. I woke up this morning to an overcast sky and a warning breeze blowing through the screen doors. By the time I got the kids downstairs and ready for breakfast, the skies opened up and it poured. And then came the thunder and lightning. And what thunder and lightning it was! The first flash was incredibly bright, and I thought to myself, “Wow, this one’s going to be a doozie.” And about eight seconds later, a rolling thunderclap shook the house. When it started the kids both stared at me with uncertain expressions, like when they fall down and aren’t sure whether to cry or not. And just like that situation, I was able to stave off their tears by my reaction – in this case, by clapping excitedly and announcing, “Thunder!!!!” Both kids immediately grinned and clapped along with me.

When I was small, no-one had to convince me that storms weren’t scary. For all that I was terrified of the noise of fireworks, I was never bothered by thunder. I loved to stand in the window with the lights off and watch storms outside. And I have never grown out of that delight. Thunderstorms, hailstorms, snowstorms, windstorms – it doesn’t matter. Any time the sky puts on a show, I want to watch. And listen.

Listening is the reason that thunderstorms top my list of exciting weather phenomena. The whistle of a windstorm or hurricane is cool, the muffled near-silence of a snowstorm is fascinating, the plink-plunk of hailstones hitting their target is marvelous, but thunder is different. Thunder has…personality. It can be a single, resounding clap, or a long rumble that builds in intensity, or a few overlapping slams. Plus, thunder has an opening act – a herald, if you will. You get a second of advance warning on thunder. The lightning that precedes it is like the starter of a race announcing, “On your mark, get set, go!” You know to stop and listen for it. I love that.

Plus, thunder is informative. Who among us has never counted the seconds between the lightning and the thunder to calculate how far away the storm is? Who among us has never mentally compared succeeding thunderclaps to determine whether the storm is getting closer or moving away? You can’t trust how loud or soft the thunder is to determine distance, but you can be absolutely sure if you use the time between the lightning and the thunder. Meteorology + math = fun!

So I am sitting in my office with the window open and the lights off, listening to the muffled roar of thunder and feeling a vague disappointment as it recedes into the distance. The concert is coming to an end. But it’s still summer in New England, and I know there are more stormy mornings yet to come. And I’ll be listening for them.

Water, Water Everywhere

The past few days have been full of water adventures – some falling down from the sky and some (much more pleasant!) in our pool.

New England has had some impressive thunder and lightning storms passing through over the past week, and even though I love thunderstorms, there were a few bands that passed through that made me a little nervous. Several nights I woke up in the middle of the night to flashes of lightning so bright I could see them through my eyelids, thunderclaps that literally shook the house, and rain and wind worthy of a natural disaster movie. It was a great relief to wake up in the morning to not only sunshine but electricity. And after the first storm, there wasn’t even much loose brush to get knocked into the pool.

Ah, the pool. Herb opened the pool a few weeks ago but the water was very cloudy, and eventually he discovered it was because there were several holes in the filter. After a number of phone calls, he found a pool supply store that had replacement parts for our “antique” (I prefer to think of it as “retro chic”) filter and managed to rebuild the whole thing. Before we knew it, the pool was beautifully clear again and although we’re not planning on turning on the heater for good till we have more time to spend in the pool (I’m predicting somewhere around mid-July), he put it on for a couple of days just to make sure it was working. So when we went in the pool last night (in between passing thunderstorms), the temperature was a glorious 88 degrees – just the way I like it!

And, apparently, just the way Ryan likes it. He had his first pool experience last weekend at my sister- and brother-in-law’s house. They keep their pool considerably cooler than we do, plus Ryan was overtired and a bit cranky, and he didn’t enjoy his “swim” quite as much as we’d hoped. But his second pool outing, and his first in our pool, was much more fun!

One of the fun parts (for Mom and Dad, anyway), was his cool “Aussie” swimsuit. It looks like a tiny wetsuit and is much easier to get on and off a non-cooperative, wet little body than you might expect. And it makes him look like a grown up little boy! I half expect him to stand up and grab a surfboard when he’s wearing it.

But the real fun began when Daddy actually brought him IN the pool. He hardly reacted when Daddy dangled his toes in the water, and looked interested and not at all concerned when Daddy lowered him in up to his tummy. And then when Daddy started zooming him around in the water and helping him float on his back, well, that was when the REAL fun began!

One of the advantages to being such a chunky monkey is that he’s absurdly buoyant. When he leaned his head back and relaxed his feet so they weren’t sticking up out of the water, he hardly needed any support from Daddy to float. All that chub had him bobbing about like a little blue cork!

Daddy even helped him get used to putting his head underwater by blowing gently in his face so he took a breath and closed his eyes, then bobbing him under for a split second. I was terrified the first time he tried it, but Ryan popped up out of the water, nonchalantly blinked a few times, then looked around as if to say, “Well, that was interesting.”

I’m delighted that he’s such a water baby already! I foresee a summer spent happily bobbing in the pool for hours on end until both he and I are blue-lipped and pruny. (OK, considering the pool temperature, probably not so blue-lipped.) He’s already more comfortable in the water than I am, so maybe he’ll spur me on to be braver in the pool! In fact, we may even need to have a race to see who can go down the water slide without holding our noses first. Although I’m pretty sure he’ll always have me beat on that one.

Stormy Weather

Okay, it’s probably not exactly the storm of the century, but right now I’m listening to some pretty impressive “thundah-boomahs” (as we call them here in New England). There’s a big Rubbermaid trashcan right outside my window that’s doing a fantastic drumroll impression as the rain pounds down. I’m not sure that wind can technically blow directly downwards, but that rain certainly looks like it’s falling faster than mere gravity alone could account for.


We’ve had several storms like this over the past few days. On Saturday night, we were setting up the function room for the Hazel Boone Studio Centennial Gala when a storm came through and it was raining so hard that it not only puddled up and overflowed through one of the window frames but it came right down the chimney and poured across the dance floor before we managed to staunch the flow! And last night I woke up with a start in the wee hours of the morning because the lightning was flashing so brightly and the thunder was literally shaking the house.

Fortunately, I love storms, so I was quite content to lie in bed with my eyes closed and enjoy the sound of the rain and the long rolling peals of thunder. And even more fortunately, Ryan is a heavy sleeper and never even woke up. (Herb has the best of both worlds, so if he did wake up – which I doubt – he’d have lain there enjoying it as well.) Although as I’m watching Ryan nap on the monitor right now, he’s getting a bit wakeful and the last loud thunderclap didn’t even make him flinch, so it’s possible that he did wake up last night but just laid quietly, enjoying the sound of the storm like I was.

There’s just something so magnificent about the power of an electrical storm. Lightning can knock down trees, short out power lines, and even kill people or animals with its strikes. Thunder can rattle windows and shake walls. Pounding rain can overflow riverbanks, wash out roads, and flood basements. There’s no denying the power of a storm. And yet, it’s not something I feel the need to be afraid of. I’m safe and warm and dry in my cozy house (or car, or even tent). In fact, hearing a storm outside makes me even more aware of how safe and warm and cozy I am, and maybe that’s why I enjoy storms so much. I’m even a little disappointed to hear this one fading away into the distance.

Lucky for me, it’s summer in New England, so there are bound to be plenty more thunderstorms ahead. And I can hardly wait!