Friday, December 19, 2008

I would rather have snow.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the rain. If I had to choose a certain weather that I liked the most, rain would have the silver medal while snow would take the gold. This explains why I would brave the wet elements with someone else’s camera and snap rain pictures.

A beautiful walk with the trailers of tiny streams in the grass . . .


A stroll along the riverbank . . .


A water fountain coming from underneath the shed door . . .


Wait a minute!

Too much rain, and where the heck did the river come from? Oh, that’s right. It used to be part of the yard and the driveway leading to my parents’ abode. I went there to pick up the mail since they would not be home today or tomorrow. Also, I wanted to see how flooded the house had become. Yeah, the backroom (family room) along with the furnace room will flood even though the house is built on the side of a huge hill. The backroom (yes - there is a reason I call the family room a backroom . . . maybe one day I will tell you the dysfunctional story) is dry - so far. The furnace room is starting to flood from the pipe leading to the water pump (they have well water.)

I would rather have snow. At least with snow you can shovel it around to where you want it to go. At least with snow it gives the wet ground a break from trying to absorb too much rain. And out here, the ground cannot absorb anymore. Even in hilly Pennsylvania, we get flooding.

All this rain reminds me of a small story from my childhood.
*************
The Pinecone and the Water Pipe.

A true child in love with the rain could find something to do outside, even on schooldays. I was no exception. I would throw on my clothes, grab my special umbrella that had the “Peanuts” comic strips on the see-through plastic canopy, and head outdoors.

On those blustery days, I walked along the driveway while reading about Lucy pulling the football out from Charlie Brown before he could kick it and Linus fighting to keep his blue blanket from “vulture” Snoopy who leaned on the tree branch. Along the way, I picked up pinecones and stuffed them into my pockets. We had a lot of pine trees (5 blue spruce and about 10 evergreens) I had to pass to reach the end of the driveway. There, a large pipe stretched underneath the dirt and crushed stone as it kept the water along the ditch from washing out all the gravel from the driveway. (Rural area - no proper drainage except ditches along the road and creeks to steer the water away.)

Back to the pinecones . . . I was choosy on which ones to take. The open ones might be pretty to look at, but they would not work out well. Now, as for the closed cones, those ones had potential. Less surface retention when they shot out the end of the pipe, depending upon the speed of the rushing water, and able to break through the dam of bunched leaves at the other end.

Heehee. Can you imagine driving down the road, seeing a girl in pigtails pulling out dirty pinecones from her pocket while using her chin to hold her Peanuts umbrella steady, as she would drop pinecones into the water at one end of the pipe before running to the opposite end and cheering when her little tree seed missiles shot out and plowed through the old Fall leaves?


It was a strange sight indeed for a girl who could find some fun even on a rainy day.

20 comments:

  1. Sorry that my posts seem a little scattered. I'm trying to get my three per week in and I realized that both Christmas and New Year fall on a Thursday, which is one of my normal post days. Once the holidays are over, I'll hopefully get back to a regular schedule, although I'll be making the rounds less. My vacation will be over tomorrow, so it will be less time online.

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  2. Great scene for a story or novel. :) I'll be reading whenever you can write.

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  3. Ah... Vive la difference, as our French friends say (and the Quebecois). I MUCH prefer rain to snow. I get just enough snow here in NM to remind me why I dislike it so. Too many winters in too many snowy places, I suppose.

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  4. Angie: Thanks! Also, perhaps I have given other writers a few "novel" ideas. *ha - I made a pun... novel/novel, get it? Yes, it's a bad joke.* :)

    Buck: Maybe it's the overabundant amount where the difference lies. Lots of snow is just a nuisance until it melts. Lots of rain can lead to property damage. Besides, your Green Hornet looks beautiful when surrounded by a bit of snow. It really pops out in those snowy pictures.

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  5. Aw, see I think that is an awesome little story! But I would never ever rather have snow!

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  6. good fun, michelle... i used to make boats, then hold 'races' to see which moved best :D

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  7. Ello: Thanks. I guess you could blame the skier in me. Even though I don't strap on the poles anymore, I still enjoy the memories of whoosing down the mountain slopes.

    Laughingwolf: It is fun, isn't it? :)

    I never did boats. Leaves. Pinecones. Light twigs. Never boats. I was too scared anything like that would get stuck inside the pipe. There were many times when the leaves would get bunched inside and the pinecones wouldn't come out until a good hard rain came. If a boat finally came out and I wasn't able to catch it, the ditch would carry it to the brook at the bottom of the hill. Nasty water there. (Don't ask!)

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  8. Your posts, Suldogs and a couple others, I always try to save for my last readings -mainly because often they are longer posts and I want to be sure to be able to read them fully. Just finished your last three posts. I agree completely with your assessment of the need -or not -for sex in a story. Great way to show that too. Loved the Attic story too. And this one -the rain and such. Well, I don't appreciate rain the way I know I should as yes, it is a very much needed commodity but the damned stuff often sets my arthritic joints into an uproar. Snow does that too at times -usually when the storm is brewing and tends to let up as it wanes then -leaving the white beauty behind. Well somedays I see snow as being beautiful but storms like the one today - not so much in the beauty department here!
    Great writings, Michelle.
    Now here's hoping you have a blessed Christmas and the most excellent New Year!
    Peace.

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  9. Jeni: Thanks! Have a safe and happy holiday season!

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  10. I can see you are having rainy holidays so far too.;)) It must be contagious.
    Loved your story about the pinecones; glad to see that the imagination from your childhood has stayed with you.;))
    Have a really nice Christmas Michelle.;)))

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  11. My first thought was: What? Snow rather than rain? Then I saw your lovely photos from the snow storm. From an artistic POV, snow trumps rain. When I lived up north I used to take my camera out all the time after it snowed.

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  12. BTW, when are you going to join me on Twitter.com?

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  13. Protege: Just a little snow to last for the winter months would be nice. Right now, I might as well call it Autumn outside.
    Happy Holidays, Protege!

    Josephine: It's just something of seeing all that crisp white snow on the ground that is just breathtaking.

    Um... well... Twitter... I suppose I could join up sometime today with that...

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  14. by 'boats' i meant those skinny, paper ones you make yourself... once soaked, they just sank :O lol

    fun? oh yeah!

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  15. Laughingwolf: OHHHH... I thought you meant like those Playskol plastic boats that float in the tub. I had some of those as a kid.

    No, I never did paper boats either. I was bad at origami. ;P

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  16. Loved your story, Michelle, as always. Have a Merry Christmas!

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  17. that does sound like fun. though. can't say i'm into the rain much! and snow is beautiful... but tied to circumstance. like today, driving in it was way no fun. but. if i were at a resort, drinking an irish whiskey beside a fireplace... admiring trees and whatnot from a warm and comfortable vantage point...

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  18. Brenda: And a Merry Christmas to you!

    Chris: Driving in bad weather, I understand completely. But taking the time to see the beauty in it, it's wonderful.

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  19. That's a lovely little story. I could see myself doing the same, if we had such a setting in city. We used to go down to the Neponset River bridge, throw something that floats off of it, and then run to the other side to see it come out :-)

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  20. Suldog: It was great excercise too! :-)

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