Raining Salvation

Well, temporarily it was this morning. The ground was wet and cool. The concrete of the road and sidewalk glistened with a wet glossy shine. The air was refreshing, with the musky smell of damp ground and leaves. It's was very nice out, even with the rain drops thumping down as if they couldn't hit the ground quickly enough. I know that it wasn't nearly as much rain as we could've had, but it was nice to actually hear thunder this morning and the winds dancing around the house.

The leaves are out in more of their fallen glory, and the day dawned without a sunrise, only gray overcast skies and my hope was for the rain to continue to soak into the ground and replenish our drought-ridden yards and countryside.

If only we could get more of this. It makes the outdoors and everything that comes in contact with it seem more alive than it's been all summer.

Even the neighbor's horses were enjoying grazing in the rain. Nothing like showering while you have breakfast I suppose. This one here was intrigued by what I was doing down near the fence so near to her. She watched me for a long while, I suppose just as interested in why I was standing in the rain with a little shiny box aimed at her as I was by her nonchalant attitude about standing right out there in the rain. Quite the beauty don't you think?

She has other buddies that were grazing as well, as you can see behind her there, but the other was so far down in the field I couldn't zoom in any further to get her picture.

Off in the distance you can barely see a cream colored horse among the misty rains and my new friend in front of one of her commrades in the photo to the left. Horses are just so beautiful and inspiring to behold.

I almost walked down to pet her, if I could've gotten her to come closer to the fence. Instead I entertained myself with taking pictures of how awful the kids pool is. We need to clean it out, but we have tadpoles, or as my stepson called them, tadipoles. I don't think I captured any on film though, I did nudge the edge of the pool and stirred up bubbles and waves in the water that reminded me a lot of abstract art(see below).

It's been a lovely partially rainy day. I feel revived, refreshed, but look forward to more of the same weather. I just hope hubby and stepson don't get rained on tomorrow night on the Cub Scout camping trip. That would be a sight to see, but more importantly, I just don't want them turning up sick, especially hubby since he had pnuemonia last year about this time.

Hope you have a wonderfully rainy day as well!

Riding Off Into The Sunset~

Don't all great stories end with riding off into the sunset? I'm not just talking literally, but figuratively as well. When I read a romance, no matter what setting, I always look for that "sunset sky" at the end.

That's the moment you know that everything is going to be fine, that even though we don't see what happens to the characters afterward, we still know that they "rode off" into that beautiful sunset together. It's the same when I write.

There's something about that skyline that holds hope for the days to come. The dreamy feeling that all the tomorrows that follow will be filled with beauty and happiness and goodness.


I mean, who can't help but stop and stare at the canvas of wonderous natural colors that usher out the sunshine before the darkness cloaks us in it's chilled embrace? I love how the lavenders and pinks, golden oranges and brilliant lemony yellows capture the eye.


The fingertips that reach up into the evening sky envelopes us in its grasp and reminds us not to take the small important things in life for granted. It reminds us to enjoy ourselves and to remember that we live our "happy endings" all the time, though they are not endings, but new beginnings every single day.

I tend to stare at the painted heavens and wonder at the beauty that's all around us. There are so many times in the rushing around of everyday life that we forget about nature, about living, about life.


Oh, we're living life, but we take a lot for granted. We forget about riding off into the sunset. We forget to enjoy it to the fullest. Even in day to day life, everything is a blur and sometimes I forget to stop and smell the roses, to stop and take in a sunset that not only beautifies my life in a small way, but also makes me more appreciative of everything else around me.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could ride off into the sunset with the one you love? How wonderful it would be to follow that sunset west across the land, watching how the colors change and shift and soften the landscape at dusk. To catch the first glimpse of the stars as they come out to dance and shimmy in the sky. To watch the moon rise to sit above the trees. To remember what love is really all about.

I still believe in happily ever afters and I still believe that all good love stories ride off into the sunset together.

The outdoors called to me today so my daughter and I took our leisure on a blanket in the yard for an hour or so. The noise, noise, noise of the indoors just finally got to me I suppose. I couldn't think for the tumbling of the clothes in the dryer and the chatter of daughter's cartoons. I needed the escape and the peace of quiet time (albeit, my daughter still jabbered up a storm as usual.)

It's was hard to tell which direction the wind was blowing on this fine warm September day. It seemed to swirl around me, first from the south, then north and east and west. I'm not really good with the directional points of my internal compass, but I believe it's mostly coming in out of the east.

I was spying on hummingbirds only a few feet away from where I was seated on a blanket in the yard, near the feeder. There was one sitting on a tree branch, swaying in the breeze.(see photo to the left) It looked as though it was bobbing its head back and forth to the music of nature.

It's any wonder that the poor little thing was able to hang onto the branch or the feeder as breezy as it was outside this afternoon. This is one of our "bully" hummingbirds who runs off all of them when they try to come get something to drink.

My last two giant sunflowers have hung their heads, given up to the last hazy days of summer, sacrificing seeds to birds and such. I heard the cawing of crows up high in the trees, calling to one another.

The crisp leaves rustled from the branches, rolling their way across the yard and I heard the clicking and repetitive call of grasshoppers, crickets, katydids and quite possibly the last few cicadas of the season.

A butterfly bravely, and without heed, fluttered by against the wind, which had kicked up a flurry of leaves. They shuddered down, abandoned by their parental units, to die amongst their fallen brothers on the dry faded grass. Mother Oak and Father Walnut kicked them from the nest. Gone from a flourishing life lived for a short time as maturity gave way to death and a spring that will come again without them.

"Caw caw caw" and "Tickity tickity tickity" called the crows and katydids, their song an infinite melody. The sweet smell of honeysuckle mingled with the musky aroma of dead leaves and mossy woods. The breeze caressed my skin, infiltrated my senses, the air thick with the heavy perfumes of Autumn.

The sky has been tempered with a grayish blue and though the trees are still green for the most part, they know it's coming...losing bits of themselves as these days wear on.

Our state flower, the goldenrod(right), is shining in all it's brilliant glory along the fence row at the back of our yard.

My sedum, or house leek, is still blooming in beautiful white with pink tinted centers, the some of the heads already turned burgundy as they begin to die off. The little bees still love the blossoms though.

As I wandered the yard with my camera, I tried to capture some of nature to bring indoors, to enjoy and share. I was not quite quick enough to catch the orange and black and brown and blue and bright yellow butterflies that zipped by in their wild and random paths across the sky and I missed a good opportunity to capture the leaf storm that flurried down from the silver poplar behind the house. Maybe next time.

I hope that everyone is able to get out and enjoy these wonderful days we're having. It's such a sweet release from the hot and humid dry days of summer we've had this year. Autumn is feeling good, giving us the ability to spend our time in quiet contemplation and reflection. I plan to embrace these gentler days before the cold weather sets in, for I have a feeling winter's chilly breath will be breathing down our necks sooner than expected.

Plus, I hope that the quiet time will also help me open up the creative lines so that I can dig into my novels with more enthusiasm, more perspective and more clarity.

There Was A Little Girl....

Who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead. And when she was good she was very very good but when she was bad she was horrid. Yep, that would be me. Little bitty, red hair, and trouble.

No, not really, but I just wanted to laugh at myself for a bit. Why, in fact, I barely recognize myself nowadays.

I was actually a pretty good kid. Very shy and unassuming. I ran and hid when we had company. I would hole up under a table with a table cloth on it or hide in another room. I was the worst kind of shy.

As I've mentioned before, my grandfather had a lot of mules, ponies, donkeys, burros and a horse. I wasn't shy about my love of those. My favorite was the horse. She was mine and for a while, she was my sounding board. Most Saturdays I would be currying her in her stall and telling her tales. Midnight Lady will never be forgotten so long as I remember her and so long as I pass down stories to my daughter. Hopefully she'll show my pictures of me on Midnight Lady to her kids and someday those photos will be in her children's and grandchildren's photo albums or scrapbooks.

I hope that my grandchildren and great grandchildren can appreciate the simplicity of what I enjoyed. I'm sure it will seem foreign to them. I grew up half in town and half in the country...suburbs meets junk yards and farm animals.

Technology is moving us so quickly into the future, it's sometimes hard to believe that it wasn't that long ago that horses were the main mode of transportation, be it on horseback or by horse-drawn buggies and such.

Yes, I can imagine how much more difficult life was back in the days of colonists and settlers, outlaws and renegades, but though times were tough, there was simplicity in that toughness.

People weren't soft like they are now. That's thanks in part to the technology we take for granted. We have been softened by it, I'm certain. We couldn't hack it nowadays without the warm fuzzy comforts of home- heating and air and fans. Without phones, televisions and computers and all the little gizmos, most people would be lost. Or at least they'd feel that way.

I usually take this stuff for granted as well, but there are times, in the quiet cool of my backyard when the traffic up and down our road is at a minimum out here in the country that I can still feel the earth's wild days calling me. I feel it in the wind that breezes past me, teasing and taunting me to run and skip and play like I did as a child. I see it in the blue skies, white skiffs of clouds, towering trees and green grass. I am tempted by the fluttering of a butterfly to give way to chase and follow wherever it may lead me.

I breath it in like it's part of me, part of who I am, for surely it is.

Saturday afternoon I traipsed around the yard while my daughter played on the swing and I felt the calm surround me, embracing me in the moment. I watched the neighbors' horses grazing just a few feet away from our property line passed the fence row. It made me want to jump the fence, hop on one of the horses and ride like the wind. To be a child of earth, wind, and air would've been like tasting the sweet honey flavor of freedom.

Freedom from all the trappings of the technology that sometimes makes my house feel like it's buzzing with artificial life from all sides. When my husband and kids are home it seems the television MUST be on...as though it would be blasphemous and cause for beheading. I myself prefer quiet time without the radio or the t.v. That's probably why I lean toward reading books and writing.

It calms my busy soul to hear quiet....My t.v.'s off and right now I hear nothing more than the hum of the fridge, the purr of the air conditioner and the swish of the ceiling fan spinning and spinning, lulling me into a kind of serenity. They are the few technological items I don't mind listening to, so long as they aren't sputtering and clanking and grinding.

Yes, our technology is wonderful, but I do have to admit that getting lost in a novel and blocking out all the noise and confusion of modern day is a sweet release from the stress and strain of all the electrical, popping, crackling static we live with on a daily basis. It clears my head to walk away from it sometimes.

I retreat to my memories of Midnight Lady and the fairytales I told her. And when I do so, it soothes that part of me that aches for simplicity. To center myself. To find the good feelings that get muffled by the noise, the static, the technology.