Life on the Farm, Seasons

Slogging Rain that ends in Chartreuse

It is still raining in Southern Oregon. Last year was our first year in this kind of weather, and it got a little depressing around the edges for most of the people in my family. I have a confession to make, though. I love the rain. I even love long days of nothing but gray sky, and fits of wimpy drops of rain, with lots of wind, and an ongoing, non-stop, grayness that seeps into pores and wraps around and makes everything cold.


Sludging through the trudging-ness of long days of gray, long winter of the Pacific Northwest where it just rains and rains and rains, and I can’t help feeling hopeful because the sky is gray, it’s drizzling rain and the fields are this brilliant green because they are getting what they need and they are getting ready to burst forth with so much beauty. All the baby animals are delighted with all that luscious grass they get to roam around and eat, and I know it sounds silly and it’s maybe not how everyone else feels. I know my husband tends to have a really hard time with the dark darkness of endless days of bleak.

What I see when I’m driving home from work is a sky full of clouds and all the fields are this green that defies explanation, a green that is ready to burst with everything good that is Spring. It almost seems like the longer the winter, the more glorious the Spring will eventually be, and all the colors of spring are at the tips of all the branches, in tiny buds, wrapped tight, but ready to shed their clothes and jump naked into the wind and be free and bright pink and dazzling white and that unbelievable green of freshness and newness and the baby grass of Spring – Chartreuse!


Benjamin this morning wrote poetry about Winter. He said that he knows there are good sides and bad sides of Winter. The good sides are the chocolate milk and cookies next to the fireplace. We don’t even have a fireplace yet, but that’s what he’s writing poetry about because he’s imagining the warmth of the poetry and milk and cookies next to a fireplace and oh how lovely is that? When it’s cold you have to hunker down and get your warm, cozy clothes on, your scarf and sweater, or a big thick robe, and your fuzzy socks or your big snuggly slippers. You have to sit close and cuddle up in blankets and read stories all bundled together on the couch. I love that. When it’s hot and sticky, it’s hard to get all close together with your loved ones when it’s 100 degrees out.

Every single tree that I pass has got little buds and they are just ready to roar into awake, alive, bright colors of whites and pinks and yellows, and it’s all just right below the surface ready to go, and that’s the beauty of days and days of drizzling rain. That’s what it is. That’s the poetry of it – that’s the waiting, that’s the love of it, that’s the soul and spirit of it. We know that every year we go through this. Every year we go through this quiet time, this death of the seed time, that brings us to that morning when we wake up and the sky is finally blue, and how amazing it is, the longer the winter has been, the more mind-boggling and joyful the Spring becomes. And so yes – I am seeing the beauty of the gray, gray, endless days of rain. Because I still love the pitter patter of it.

Photos from here: storm brewing, field of green, finally Spring.

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