Beautiful sounds in the early morning

I woke before dawn when the weather changed slightly and rain drops began to fall. I lay in bed and listened to the hesitant, occasional drops hitting the window and roof overhead, hoping that the process would gain velocity and turn into a good downpour. So many rainstorms “nowadays” yield only enough water to lay the dust, and then dry up or move on. Not enough to satisfy! After about ten minutes of drips and drops, the sound began to change into steady rainfall, and I relaxed.

Drowsing, I heard a wonderful new sound – a plasticky “thump thump,” coming from the corner of the house just outside my window – outside of the bedroom corner into which my bed is tucked. 

Dreamily, I thought of it as the first spurts of milk into a pail (where have I ever heard that?). The individual thumps became a rapid thumping – and then morphed into the sound of drops landing in water. It was rainwater coming off the roof into the big bucket at the bottom of the downspout.

Oh how beautiful the sounds, as I listened to the rainwater rushing down the drainpipe in drops and pretty little trickles, landing in the rising water to fill the big bucket. Later on that day I walked around the house to stare with deep comfort at the four 5 gallon buckets now filled with clear cold rainwater.

Maybe, with sufficient conservation and management, this July and August won’t be as bad as last summer, when I overwatered and my well went dry for six weeks.

(Read all about it – scroll down to Older Posts, or go to 2011 summer and fall dates listed in the archives)