Monsoon Season

If April showers truly bring May flowers, than I am convinced that every one of the million seeds I scattered around the yard are going to sprout and grow. For the past week or so (on and off), we have had rain (and when I say rain, I mean RAIN… light rain, drizzly rain, sideways rain, torrential, Amazonian rainforest rain, and big, fat, ploppy rain) as a crazy couple of storms have passed through the area. It got a little hairy for a minute, and while I’m as big a fan of midnight tornado siren serenades as anyone else, enough is enough already. Everything got soaked. But, at least it’s better than snow, right?

I personally love the rain. I love the sound it makes when it hits the window, and I find it rather hypnotic to trace the meandering path it makes in rivulets down the glass. I love how it feels on my skin and I also love how everything looks after a nice rain.

 

It lends a certain crisp freshness to the air, like a bright green apple that you breath but cannot eat. Things around the Hartford Homestead are really starting to perk up. The grass is sloughing off its winter coat and is beginning to look verdant and lush. Well, maybe lush is still a bit of an overstatement, but its on its way. The forsythia have burst forth in a profusion of gold to be rivaled by none, and here and there buds can be seen on everything from the lilacs to the blueberry bushes.  

"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors,
there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night."
~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke

I dared, against my better judgement, to pull off the hay “blankets” that have hidden everything, fearful of finding out that nothing has decided to grow. Much to my relief, I found so many little green sprouts that it looks as though someone has coated our drab little seed beds with tiny emeralds, sparkling in the rain. 

The mixed use sun garden off of our patio is also showing signs of stirring. The kale is popping up here and there; and while there is still only a scant peppering of carrots, beets, and spinach, it seems as though the radishes have finally decided to make an entrance en masse, much like the guests who never RSVP’d to your party at dinnertime. The cabbages are turning brighter purples and greens, and the lettuce is stretching its arms up to welcome the much longed for sun.  

Radish party crashers!

If rain is great for the yard, it is less that wonderful for the animals. The rabbits simply refuse to go out in the stuff, no matter how many cute jackets and leashes I buy for them (maybe they need raincoats... hmmm). In the past, when they have been all "Gussied" up for a walk, they simply sit down and begin to take a bath, indignant about the whole affair, and they refuse to take another step. Rabbits do NOT enjoy rain.

"Pink is not my color and my feet are getting muddy! Hmmmph!"

The chickens are another story. They never need an invitation to fly the coop, but once they are out, they are not thrilled by this wet stuff that is falling on them from the blue-grey ceiling. They run around, they shake, they get soaked, and they look singularly bedraggled and half drowned. They huddle under the nest box, which provides about 1 ft x 2 ½ ft of coverage and mutter to each other, looking just plain miserable. 

Poor Miss Money Penny, going through a particularly difficult and prolonged molt,
watching what little dignity she has left go out the window as some
unscrupulous paparazzi clicks her pic, moments after a torrential downpour.

Which came first, the chicken or the umbrella?
The answer... clearly, the chicken.

However, they never figure out that if they go back in the coop, they will be able to stay dry and warm. Well, I guess I shouldn’t assume they haven’t figured it out. Perhaps they approach this time much like a prisoner would view his or her time in “the yard”-something to be taken advantage of, whether they enjoy it or not. Well, except for Mama Hazel that is. She jumped out of her cage, babies in tow, took one look out the garage door at the rain cascading out of the eaves, and turned right around. She went back to her warm, cozy nest, clucking disappointedly, and reassumed her role as heater and baby-chick jungle gym.

Everyone thinks chickens are dumb, but I can’t agree. About some things, sure, I’ll go with that (I mean, everyone can’t be good at everything, right?), but as a blanket statement, “chickens are dumb”... nope.  I’m not on board. Our chickens are fast, FAST learners. They know where the food comes from, who gives it to them, the sound it makes when it is being opened, and where it is stored. They know that when “He Who Feeds Us” is working in the yard, there are almost always delicious little things unearthed and ready to be enjoyed. They can distinguish in the blink of an eye between a dandelion, growing wild in the yard, and a $15 echinacea plant, knowing full well that the more expensive something is, the better it must taste. They know the best places to nap and take baths, and they know exactly who the push-overs are and are not ashamed to monopolize on it (regardless if they have already had treats 4 times that day or not). But, enough of this tangent; the point is that for all they may know, coming in out of the rain is not one of them.

The lesson from this past week is that into every life, a little rain must fall. If you get more rain than you were planning for, you must simply throw on the galoshes and wait for the sun. In our opinion, the sun cannot get back fast enough. We are really excited to watch things SPRING to life and burst into blossom, eagerly awaiting all that the season has to offer here at the Hartford Homestead.