“Watch the radar,” she said. “Don’t go emptying your rain barrels until you know it’s going to rain.”<\/p>\n
The fair and industrious Trudy knows her husband well.<\/p>\n
So I sat at the keyboard periodically glancing out the window, eyeing the approach of black clouds from the west. And I watched the radar: it was coming:yellows and oranges and … was that a little red? The sky turned black. A wind kicked up and tossed the upper reaches of the Ash tree.<\/p>\n
I kept watching the radar. Until I could watch no more.\u00c2\u00a0It was certain<\/em> to rain. The radar showed a wall of color advancing toward us. The sky was darker by the minute, and thunder was rolling just beyond the hills.\u00c2\u00a0So I went and drained some of our best rain barrel into an empty garbage can.<\/p>\n And you know what happened then, don’t you?<\/p>\n The wind died down. The clouds broke. It was as light as day again. And there was no rain.<\/p>\n I went back inside and sat down at the keyboard, shaking my head.<\/p>\n There were a few small corrections to make to my program, so I made them and checked the code back in.\u00c2\u00a0The sky was majorly light, now, and in place to the southwest there were patches of blue.<\/p>\n I could not believe my luck and went outside to silently shake my fist at that storm hills. And as I stood outside in the driveway reflecting on the dry grass and how the water barrels would be empty soon, the dog started barking uncontrollably from inside the house.<\/p>\n Take me out! Take me out! It’s getting late, and I haven’t been for my walk!<\/em><\/p>\n I smiled and went inside and turned to grab the leash just inside the door. Guinness jumped and squirmed and ran in circles, and I waited for him to gather his wits. And then we went out the door.<\/p>\n We went down the block and turned left, for to the right are the soccer fields, and the dark skies and flashing lightning had evidently passed that way, and I decided we didn’t need to be the only thing standing out there. So we went left and then left again for a quick walk around the block\u00e2\u20ac\u201dsomething’s better than nothing<\/p>\n Then I felt a drop on my head. It made me chuckle. A little finger in my eye just to rub it in\u00e2\u20ac\u201da drop of rain<\/em> where I had been expecting a storm.\u00c2\u00a0And then another drop, and then another and another, until the skies opened up (from what rain clouds, I do not know), and the two of us were soaking wet.<\/p>\n A family was sitting under the eaves of their house across the street watching us. They smiled and waved. I told them we could thank the dog’s walk for the rain, and they laughed. And I smiled.<\/p>\n And we got very, very wet. And my rain barrels got full.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 1. The Approaching Storm “Watch the radar,” she said. “Don’t go emptying your rain barrels until you know it’s going to rain.” The fair and industrious Trudy knows her husband well. So I sat at the keyboard periodically glancing out the window, eyeing the approach of black clouds from the west. And I watched the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6,35,3],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":495,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492\/revisions\/495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}2. Walking the Dog<\/h3>\n