Rain

It is raining here today.  Made me think of how much I love rain.  I wish I lived in a house with a nice porch and a porch swing or a nice rocking chair so I could just sit and watch the rain fall.   I love rain and storms. 

When we lived at the Spring Knob forestry tower there would be thunder storms where the clouds were down below the level where the cabin was.  Lightening and thunder were so close it was like they lived inside the cabin with us.  I was never afraid of storms and living there with them so intimately close is probably where I learned to love them.

When we lived at the big, white house in West Van Lear there was an unfinished space between the one, long room upstairs and the window that overlooked the road.  My dad always wanted plenty of light around so we had one of those dusk to dawn lights on one of the electric poles right in front of that window and almost even with it.  I can remember lying or sitting in there and watching the rain fall day or night.  The now was really beautiful at night as it would fall slowly out of the darkness into the light and float gently to the ground.

The place I really loved the rain most though was at Nat's Creek.  The house my grandparents lived in had an attic space with one bed in it.   The roof was a 'tin roof' and there was nothing between the tin and whoever was sleeping in that bed but a few inches of air.  I cannot describe the sound a hard rain would make on that roof.  The attic was small in height and the head of the bed was back near the lowest point so when you were lying in bed the roof was only a couple of feet above your head.  Like being inside the storm.  If I ever have the money and the place I will build a replica of that old house and have my bed there just below a tin roof.

Nat's Creek is not a really large stream though when I was young it seemed plenty big to me.  Between my grandparent's house and the house where I was born the creek was really shallow and ran over a gravel bed with large stones  intersperses up and down.  I was told there was a flash flood that came once and washed the stones out of Mill Branch.  That was a little hollow that was directly across the creek from the log cabin where I was born.  Made me want to see a  flash flood.

I never did see a flood of that magnitude but I have seen the creek raise up pretty far.  Every year it would raise enough to cover the garden space on the creek bank below my grandparent's house.  When we lived at West Van Lear there was an itsy-bitsy stream but at its most flooded it was not very impressive.  But I'd go stand on Mrs Huff's concrete foot bridge and watch it anyhow. 

But the best place to watch a Nat's Creek flood was when we lived in the old Blessing Place between early 1967 and when I got married in 1973.  When a big storm was happening I'd move my bed over by the window where I could lie there and watch the rain and the creek to rise.  Over the years I witnessed many good floods.  There was nothing build very close to the creek, up and down, so there was never much danger of anything being damaged.

We had a foot bridge from the road to our side of the creek and that was my gauge on whether it was a good rain or not.  If the creek got over the foot bridge it was a good rain.  There was also an old barn sitting a good bit below the level of the house which was up on a pretty good rise.  There were a few times the creek even got high enough to be a couple of feet deep in the barn.  Those were really good rains.

I also enjoyed rains and storms while I was out in the woods.  I always carried a shotgun and thought of myself as hunting.  And, I guess I was as if any critter that was edible happened along I'd shoot it but mostly I enjoyed being in the woods alone.  I actually enjoyed being most places alone or at least most places my parents were  not.   But that is a story for a different time.

I knew most of the rock cliffs up and down the creek so when a rain would come I'd head for a close one and build a fire under the cliff and sit with the fire to warm me and watch the rain dripping from the leaves and listen to the fall of rain hitting those leaves even higher up.  I'd put my shotgun over on the end of the cliff away from me in case of lightening.  I have no idea what good that would have done as lightening never hit anything near me any how. 

For me, falling rain, is one of the most peaceful things I have ever known.