Rainbow over the hay barn at BriarCroft
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Rainbow over the hay barn at BriarCroft
Ark Building
January 14, 2006
Rain has fallen every day for 27 days here. Even those of us who are northwest natives are overwhelmed by the gray cloudy moisture and mildew that clings to everything and everyone, blocking daylight so thoroughly that we leave for work in the dark and return in the dark despite lengthening days. The continuing rain is not predicted to end anytime soon, so there are chances of hitting that proverbial 40 days of rain. Indeed, it may be time to build an ark. It's time to get busy so we are not left treading water as it rises around us.
I'm starting to understand why 40 days of rain makes people uneasy, not just because of the chance of past history repeating itself. Not only has the rain been extraordinary, but temperatures have been unseasonably warm. Christmas day came close to 60 degrees, and most days since have been in the 50s. This is discombobulating for humans, animals and plants alike. The bulbs have started to peek through the dirt a month early, coaxed out prematurely by this false spring, buds are swelling on the trees, our stallion is starting to shed, and I'm sweating in my Carhartts as I clean the barn. The mud is well past the top of my boots in some places. Last night, I was awakened by a frog croaking by the bedroom window, his serenade at least 8 weeks earlier than it should be. Canadian geese were flying in V formation heading north and the trumpeter swans are sticking around rather than heading south to other feeding grounds. I walked through the fields during a momentary sun break today, climbed up our hill and heard the sound of running water where none should be. I could stand still and hear the sound of invisible streams trickling down the hillside under the grass cover-- the field was draining itself downhill, soppy and saturated. I was literally walking on water, standing atop a flowing river hidden by blades of grass.
The whole farm feels out of sorts and unfamiliar--nothing is as it should be for mid-January.
It took a rainbow to set things right for me. Rainbows remind us when the days are at their most dismal and bleak, there is still promise of renewal and relationship between the Creator and His world. We are His, even in our darkest hour when it seems all hope is lost. He blinds us with His radiance in the sky, peers at us through the curious eyes of our horses, sings to us in the song of the swans overhead or the frog beneath our window, and holds our hand as we walk together on the water of the fields. He is the ark that keeps us afloat in the flood.
We won't need to build an ark after all. We are here to stay, soppy but saturated as we are drenched with the showering of life every day.
Emily
Two by two--Nuance (L) and mother Noblesse (R)