The Beauty of a Rainy Day

FIELD NOTES FROM HONEY HILL

Along Fence Rows & Woodland Paths with Silas Thorne

“The Beauty of a Rainy Day”

Silas Thorne believes nature always has a story to tell for those willing to slow down and listen.

From hummingbirds and wildflowers to changing seasons, woodland creatures, and quiet mornings along the creek, he invites readers to discover the beauty, wonder, and small surprises waiting just beyond the doorstep.

The rain began while I was deciding whether to go out.

By the time I had found my hat, it had settled into a gentle, steady fall.

I went anyway.

There are October days best enjoyed beside a window, with something warm close at hand. This did not seem to be one of them. The air was cool, the wind slight, and the rain made a soft sound in the leaves that I wanted to hear without glass between us.

At the gate, I stopped to turn up my collar.

The first drops tapped against my hat.

A few slipped from the brim.

Then the little sounds became so regular that I scarcely noticed them, except when a heavier drop fell from a branch and announced itself.

The road was darkening, its dust settled. Along the edge of the road, fallen leaves lay pressed against one another in gold, brown, and fading red.

Wet earth has a smell of its own.

So do wet leaves.

Together, they made the air feel familiar before I had gone a dozen steps.

A squirrel crossed ahead of me carrying something in his mouth.

He paused at the foot of a tree, looked in my direction, and continued.

I had interrupted nothing important enough to delay him.

Farther along, another was working among the leaves. His tail curved over his back while his forepaws attended to a small patch of ground.

The rain had apparently not altered his plans.

My plans had been less definite.

I stood watching until he finished. He moved several feet away, and began another investigation.

Under the fence, a chipmunk appeared briefly, then vanished beside a tangle of roots.

There was a good deal of work and preparation going on around me.

I was merely taking a walk.

At a bend in the road stood a tree with deeply furrowed bark.

A White-breasted Nuthatch was making his way along its trunk.

He went upward a little, turned, and came down headfirst, examining places I could not have seen from where I stood. His feet held him securely while he leaned away from the bark to look beneath an irregular edge.

A small bird can make an old tree seem very large.

I watched him disappear around the trunk and waited.

Presently, he came back into view.

He had found something worth attending to on the underside of a branch.

I could hear the rain falling through the branches above him, with a different sound where it reached the grass and another where it struck the road.

What had seemed one sound at my gate was several now.

Beyond the trees, the pasture lay beneath a pale grey sky.

The colors were quieter there, but no less beautiful.

A low hillside wore russet and gold, softened by the rain. Dark trunks stood clearly among the leaves. Here and there, a red branch seemed brighter from everything around it being wet.

There was no sunshine to catch those colors.

They were doing very well without it.

I rested a hand on the fence.

Water gathered along the upper rail, trembling before each drop let go.

Beneath it, a spider’s web held a row of tiny beads. I had probably passed that same corner many times without seeing the web at all.

Today, the rain had made it visible.

I heard the geese before I found them.

Their calls came through the low sky, distant at first, then nearer.

I looked up beneath my hat brim.

A company of Canada Geese passed overhead, their formation shifting slightly as they went. For a few moments, their voices filled the open space above the pasture.

Then they continued beyond the trees.

I stood listening after I could no longer see them.

October has its departures.

The geese made theirs plainly known.

Other changes were taking place more quietly — a bare twig where leaves had been, a darkened seed head beside the fence, the thinning cover beneath a tree.

I had seen that pasture and woodline only a few days before.

There was more sky showing through it now.

On the way back, I stopped beneath the Honey Locust again.

The nuthatch had moved on.

A few drops fell from the branches, larger and more widely spaced than the rain itself.

One landed on my shoulder.

Another struck my hat with a sound quite out of proportion to its size.

I looked up.

That was sufficient invitation for a third to find my cheek.

I continued home.

The squirrel was nowhere to be seen, though a fresh disturbance among the leaves suggested that his afternoon had remained productive.

At my gate, I paused once more.

From inside the house, that rain would have been something to look at.

Out here, it had been the tapping on my hat, the cool touch against my face, the smell of earth and leaves, the wet fence beneath my hand, and the voices of geese passing through a sky I could not see very far into.

My cuffs were damp.

My shoes would need attention.

Both seemed a fair exchange for the time and experience.

I left my hat where it could dry and put the kettle on.

While I waited, I stood beside the window.

The rain was still falling.

A little water traveled down the glass, joining another drop before continuing to the sill. Beyond it, the path shone dark between the fallen leaves.

I could see the gate where I had stopped.

Farther away, the Honey Locust rose above the fence.

I knew something of what was happening out there now, even where the window could not show me.

When the kettle was ready, I carried my cup to a chair and sat listening.

There was a little of the rain on my collar.