Wet

Rain is back tonight, but it's warmer than the last storm and, thus far, quite genteel. This is the more typical, well-mannered autumn storm one would expect in October. After an hour or so of soft mists, it settled down to a steady pattering, seldom disturbed by even a mild breeze. It is a rain for reading and tea drinking and woolgathering. I can leave my windows open and listen to it without freezing, as long as I wear a sweater. Yesterday afternoon, which was quite mild, the street sported a pale brown coat of pine needles. The rain will turn them a deeper color, and when the sun next emerges they will be coppery red. The streets always look nice when lined with wet pine needles. I am currently hopeful of two things: that normal autumn weather will now prevail, and that there will be no clouds for the lunar eclipse on the 27th.

Oh, there's a third thing; My Internet connection has been incredibly slow tonight, and I suspect that the telephone box is getting damp, so I hope for an afternoon dry spell today, long enough that the box can dry out, and allow me to replace its worn rain hat.

Day of Pearl

Moody but luminous gray skies persist even when the rain has stopped. Dozens of birds appear, darting from one sodden pine to another, visiting the dogwoods to snack on the bright red berries, and alighting briefly on the mulberry branches whose green and yellow leaves then shake loose quick showers of captured raindrops. More drops have been caught along the underside of the rain gutters, and they hang there reflecting the light, lending the house an oddly festive air. The fallen pine needles have turned bright, the street now a patchwork of their coppery red interspersed with shining black mirrors of rainwater in which the clouds drift. The still air resounds with high-pitched chirps and the beating of wings, the splatter of water dropped by the pines, and (only for a moment) the honking of geese hidden among the low clouds. As dusky day fades to duskier evening, a single blue jay perches on the telephone wire, looking about and periodically shaking its tail feathers. Soft mist arrives. The jay flutters its wings and soars to the tip of a pine tree, then departs toward the darkening woods, having uttered not a single squawk. The pleasant chill I feel is from more than the cold.