The sound of rain on the roof of the high ceiling of my home office was a welcome one when it arrived earlier this evening. Rain, especially here in California, is life. It keeps the garden alive. It keeps our water prices down (somewhat) and it washes away a lot of the grit and grime the other 9 months of year when rain is not only scarce but in most years non-existent.
There is little chance that this rain will end our drought, but it will get us a little closer to normal rainfall and that might be the best we can hope for.
Here in Southern California we have a love/hate relationships with rain. We need it desperately but the issues it can cause often lead us to fear its arrival. Driving and traffic can get quite screwed up when it rains. People seem to forget how to drive in the rain from one season to the next. Solo spinouts, read-end collisions and even some rollovers are typical. I have seen some fairly crazy crashes in my time here, rivaling even the ice and snow skidding of my Ohio childhood. For my own part, all of the collisions I have been involved in happened on dry roads, so danger lurks at all times of the year.
We can also have issues with mudslides, especially in years where we have had many fires in the surrounding hillsides. As far as I remember, though, the number of fires has been relatively low this year. Still, it doesn’t take much rain to make the barren hillsides start to feel the effects of gravity and head downhill. The more rain, the more lubrication the mudslide has, the more momentum it gathers and the more material it can carry. I can’t say I have ever seen a mudslide unclose, although I did once come upon a house-sized boulder that had recently toppled on to Topanga Canyon Road when I was returning from Malibu, one rainy day. The videos I have seen of mudslides are terrifying enough to make me never want to be too close to one.
Rain in the Garden Video from 2013
Rain montage video from 2010
As you can tell from these videos, I am always interested when the rain arrives and usually find some way of capturing it . If it is still raining tomorrow (which the forecast calls for), I’ll probably record something, too. These are nice videos to watch on those 100+ degree days the come for weeks at a time in the heights (or depths) of a Southern California Summer.
Don’t hate the rain. Slow down when you’re driving. Stay home when you can. Stand outside and watch it come down for a while. Revel in the rain for it will be gone much too soon.
Previously on End of the Day:
- Small Town California – End of the Day for February 25, 2014
- In sickness and in health – End of the Day for February 24, 2014
- All the world’s a stage – The Magic of Theater — End of the Day for February 23, 2014
- Self-doubt — End of the Day for February 22, 2014
- An evening out — End of the Day for February 21, 2014
- …and the days roll by — End of the Day for February 20, 2014
- You are getting sleepy — very, very sleepy… — End of the Day for February 19, 2014
- Sitting around talking — and making the world a better place, I hope — End of the Day for February 18, 2014
- Holiday over, now back to work! — End of the Day for February 17, 2014
- Take a Picture Already — End of the Day for February 16, 2014
- An “At Home” Day — End of the Day for February 15, 2014
- Truly the end of the day — End of the Day for February 14, 2014
- Grandpa Claude’s Birthday – End of the Day for February 13, 2014
- Why do we do what we do? — End of the Day for February 12, 2014
- 50! — End of the Day for February 11, 2014
- The Dad Cycle — End of the Day for February 10, 2014
- Stillness, silence and sand — End of the Day for February 9, 2014
- Parental Robots? – End of the Day for February 8, 2014
- Topics of (dis)interest – End of the Day for February 7, 2014
- Home again — End of the Day for February 6, 2014
- …but Mom, he followed me home! — End of the Day for February 5, 2014
- All parenting is ad lib – End of the Day for February 4, 2014
- A little bit of this and a little bit of nothing – End of the Day for February 3, 2014
- Was that rain on the roof? – End of the Day for February 2, 2014
- Growing up – End of the Day for February 1, 2014
- End of the Day for January 2014