Summer rain.

In the middle of the night I wake to hear the first tentative drops of rain on our metal roof and smile: we have had weeks of dry hot weather and this is a welcome change. By morning the sky is down to treetop level and weeping a fine soaking spray that is shrugged off by the hard dry ground. It will take several days to really make a difference, but we are welcoming to whatever comes our way. By mid morning the sun is already burning through, which is just right for our summer guests who measure their holidays more carefully than we do. We all go for a walk in Ruckle Park and down to the beach.

Just this little rain, but we can smell Fall in the air as we brush through the dripping salal and dodge dry maple and alder leaves fluttering down from drought-pressed trees. The beach at the head of the little bay is wet from the receding tide and slippery with cast up seaweed. High up the beach among the drift logs shoals of dry cracking arbutus leaves fill every crevice. The light touch of rain on the raised grain shows up the whorls and textures of the logs. How beautiful! How lucky that these twisted grains have made these logs unattractive as lumber or firewood.

Through the winter we dreamt of hot summer days, a bountiful garden, but now we smell the turn of season in this summer rain and begin to adjust our dreams to crisp Fall days, splitting wood and gathering the harvest.