RAINY SATURDAY

Our area's National Weather Service prophets—possibly operating on the theory that if you keep predicting something long enough, it will eventually come true—claimed it was going to rain all day yesterday. Actually, they made this announcement the day before. Come yesterday morning, they'd revised their call, saying rain would move into the region sometime after noon. When noon came, with skies still bright and sunny, I expect they revised their revision—perhaps declaring this thoughtlessly dawdling rain would now arrive in the night, or even…gasp!…not until this morning, though I don't know that to be the case. By then I'd given up listening to their prognostications in favor of simply looking outside. The way I figured, if I observed millions of little water droplets falling out of a cloudy sky, I could safely assume it was raining.

I'm not making fun of our weather experts. Honest. They have a difficult job—impossible, really, since nature remains oblivious to their latest and greatest technology, steadfastly unimpressed by all their charts and data. They're sort of like sports announcers trying to give blow-by-blow details of a boxing match before the fight takes place. Weather forecasting is still guesswork, no matter how fancy a plate it's served up on—as much supposition as science.

(I just checked the current prediction for my area. The rain, they say, will be here after noon, three hours from now. Looking out my window, I see it is raining. Hmmm…)

Why these weather musings? Well, because it's Saturday morning, and I'd rather be out: a) taking photos and walking in the woods; b) planting seeds and preparing seed/plant beds; c) adding more rock slabs to my pseudo-flagstone walk; d) fishing. Instead, it looks as though I'll be relegated to: e) working inside; and f) grumbling about the weather.

Yes, we need rain. The annual seeds I stuck in the ground more than a week ago need rain. The flowers and bushes I planted need rain. The iron-hard ground where I'm laying my pseudo-flagstone walkway needs rain, which will subsequently benefit my back if I can dig with a shovel rather than a pick-axe. The river and fish therein need their fresh drink, too. And God knows, the lawn always welcomes rain, which keeps the lawnmower happy.

I'm just not in the mood for rain today. Not in the mood for these light showers and gloomy skies. And neither, apparently, is the great blue heron I photographed in the nether-light of what passed for a late dawn this morning. The big bird and fellow fisherman has been flapping from one riffle to another for hours, unsettled, unable to find a place he likes—restless and moody as me in his own way.

I'd fly off, too, if I could…

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