Rain Song (Shallow Thoughts)

Rain Song

We've been in the depths of a desperate drought. Last year's monsoon season never happened, and then the winter snow season didn't happen either.

Dave and I aren't believers in tropical garden foliage that requires a lot of water; but even piñons and junipers and other native plants need some water. You know it's bad when you find yourself carrying a watering can down to the cholla and prickly pear to keep them alive.

This year, the Forest Service closed all the trails for about a month -- too much risk of one careless cigarette-smoking hiker, or at least I think that was the reason (they never really explained it) -- and most the other trail agencies followed suit. But then in early July, the forecasts started predicting the monsoon at last. We got some cloudy afternoons, some humid days (what qualifies as humid in New Mexico, anyway -- sometimes all the way up to 40%), and the various agencies opened their trails again. Which came as a surprise, because those clouds and muggy days didn't actually include any significant rain. Apparently mere air humidity is enough to mitigate a lot of the fire risk?

Tonight the skies finally let loose. When the thunder and lightning started in earnest, a little after dinner, Dave and I went out to the patio to soak in the suddenly cool and electric air and some spectacular lightning bolts while watching the hummingbirds squabble over territory. We could see rain to the southwest, toward Albuquerque, and more rain to the east, toward the Sangres, but nothing where we were.

Then a sound began -- a distant humming/roaring, like the tires of a big truck passing on the road. "Are we hearing rain approaching?" we both asked at the same time. Since moving to New Mexico we're familiar with being able to see rain a long way away; and of course everyone has heard rain as it falls around them, either as a light pitter-patter or the louder sound from a real storm; but we'd never been able to hear the movement of a rainstorm as it gradually moved toward us.

Sure enough, the sound got louder and louder, almost unbearably loud -- and then suddenly we were inundated with giant-sized drops, blowing way in past the patio roof to where we were sitting.

I've heard of rain dances, and songs sung to bring the rain, but I didn't know it could sing back.

We ran for the door, not soon enough. But that was okay; we didn't mind getting drenched. After a drought this long, water from the sky is cause only for celebration.

The squall dumped over a third of an inch in only a few minutes. (This according to our shiny new weather station with a sensitive tipping-bucket rain gauge that measures in hundredths of an inch.) Then it eased up to a light drizzle for a while, the lightning moved farther away, and we decided it was safe to run down the trail to "La Cienega" (Spanish for swamp) at the bottom of the property and see if any water had accumulated. Sure enough! Lake La Senda (our humorous moniker for a couple of little puddles that sometimes persist as long as a couple of days) was several inches deep. Across the road, we could hear a canyon tree frog starting to sing his ratchety song -- almost more welcome than the sound of the rain itself.

As I type this, we're reading a touch over half an inch and we're down to a light drizzle. The thunder has receded but there's still plenty of lightning.

More rain! Keep it coming!