Rain!

It's raining. I imagine that is a great surprise to all who have lived through this past season! The dogs have whined until I responded, and allowed them to retreat inside. Even though it is warm enough they have no interest in experiencing any more wetness from the sky. The clothes on the line have become accustomed to being rinsed and re-rinsed several times before they are finally allowed to take their places on the shelves. 

Rain has become the norm this year. No one exclaims about it. The exclamation comes into play when the sun shows its face. Today is a deeply soaking rain. No lightening and thunder, no blowing sideways gale, no hail pounding on the floor of the world. It is a disturbing rain in a sense. Although not as violent as the other numerous storms we've had lately it is the type of rain that, if it continued droning on, could fill our yards with pools of water deep enough to swim in. Well, certainly cavort in. 

This is a year where you wonder if a normal summer is possible at all. Our winter was intensely cold. It was not so much the temperature itself but that the temperature didn't break often. It remained intensely cold for weeks on end with no moderating. We had very few days with the sun out at all. It was a dreary winter, a draining winter. Topped off with a spring of almost constant cold rain it feels as if nature itself is trying to give the earth a giant enemic cleansing. Maybe it needs it. I don't know. Maybe its purpose is to slow down the gas drilling business a bit. Maybe it's the infamous global warming. Maybe its just nature doing what it wants no matter our wishes. Maybe there's a reason. Maybe it just is. We have had years where there was no summer, weather wise. My Mom used to talk about years such as this when she was young, and there was a year not too long ago where we had a summer that never got warm enough for a pair of shorts, let alone swimming. This has certainly not been one of those. We have had some extremely hot, humid days, but the rain is definitely dominating our landscape. I will be very interested to see how gardens shape up this year. Water is good, but not to the drowning point. 

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On another subject, I have become completely discouraged with the performance of iWeb lately. For months now it has not functioned well and the same problem seems to crop up over and over. So, I am switching to Blogger for awhile. We'll see how it goes. Let me know any thoughts or problems viewing.