Let It Rain

Sunrise -- Pilot Point, Texas

As I drove home from work last night, the sky behind me was blue and sunny, but as far as the eye could see ahead was dark. The wind was gusty enough that I had to keep both hands on the wheel. I could see a lot of both cloud-to-ground and cloud-to-cloud lightning. It smelled wonderful. I had two thoughts: poor Chula, and bring it on! Almost absentmindedly, I promised out loud that if it would rain, I wouldn't complain about having to get out of the truck to open the gate -- I was wearing a floaty skirt, silk blouse, and fussy little shoes. Not ten seconds later, the sky opened up and it poured and banged and boomed for about 30 minutes. Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor! This was very welcome, as it is not uncommon for North Texas to be completely dry from June or July through September.

When I got home, I angled the truck so I could just reach my arm out to grab the mail, then pulled up to the gate. I just sat there, reading the mail, enjoying the rain until it let up enough to not get completely saturated.

We got .75 inch of rain in that time, which was just enough to wash the insect population of 3 counties (from crossing the lake in several places) from my windshield and grill. The horses enjoyed it from the wooded area just in back of the house. I'm hoping it helps the grass, which has been looking pretty bad. I haven't mentioned it here, but the land is over-grazed and we've had a lot of erosion. It's barely supporting just two horses, and we need to do something, but we need help figuring out exactly what and when. And there's always how much it will cost. On Wednesday, August 13, we have a county Ag agent coming to assess the land and help us devise a revitalization plan, after which I should have an interesting report.