Source: Page 94 of White Noise Keywords: "just," "ethereal," "cupped," "higher"

From: "Madgardener" <madgard@bellsouth.net> Subject: The magic of a spring storm Date: 31 Mar 2002 Newsgroups: rec.gardens

I want to share with all of you the magic that a spring storm has brought to me up here on the ridge. Friday was almost too perfect for playing outside. But alas, I had taken the early out from work only to have to play "grown-up" and pay bills. The majority of my free moments in the blue sky and warm temperatures was spent in the truck with Rose, running in and out of buildings paying bills and dealing with people that weren't in the mood for the reality of my financial situations. I didn't care. I was estatic that my husband's check had come earlier than I had considered wouldn't arrive until Saturday, so if everone's drawers were in a knot, it was their problem to adjust them accordingly. I had to drive to west Knoxville to pick Squire up because he was arriving from western Des Moines, Iowa and was going to have a show with the truck in downtown Knoxville. So he'll be home for the duration of the show, and then he'll be off to Massachusetts and beyond up to June. He had informed me in Virginia that he'd be at the safety building in two hours, and please not be late, so Rose and I finished up our business and boogied on to northwest Knoxville near Oak Ridge. We sat in the deserted parking lot for awhile. The winds were stiff and forboding in that I knew they were bringing the storms that the weather folks had promised of rains all weekend. I let Rose wander around the wooded perimeters and have a relaxed time sniffing new smells and just chilling, dawg style. We waited. Rose decided she wasn't impressed with the winds and wanted to get back into her truck. We waited. Three hours later as I was growling that I could have at least PLAYED in my gardens at home for two hours before coming here, Squire arrives. Rose goes wild when she spots the huge truck pulling into the road that leads to the building just for this truck and other projects they do thru TDOT. The clouds that were being swept in from the west were promising to be fully loaded, and the temperatures were rising. Since Squire had been in Iowa, he was so happy to just be able to roll down his truck window, he rode with everything open. I was dressed in summer top, flips, cargo's and my flowered garden hat that has become famous. We gathered our son's at a Mexican restaurant to have a family knosch together since the oldest son hadn't seen his Pa for weeks and had a surprise for him. He's turned 30, but he had allowed his beloved lady to cut his long braid of hair off and had what some of you know as a "high and tight" and had shaved off his goatee. It was a merry time with much laughter and eating of good Mexican fare on a reasonablely priced buffet. We then coerced oldest son to return with us home to further the celebrations of family together, his girlfriend was under the weather, and had bowed out, and we parted to hook up at home with just a couple of stops. As we walked out to the truck, Rose greatly dissappointed that we hadn't brought her a tidbit, I noticed that the truck was just a bit damp. And the smells of rain were thick in the air. To the northeast of us, lighting shows were illuminating the sky, which had an unusual velvet blue and rose cast to it. We were driving east and as I weilded our way onto the interstate and headed towards the mountains, I was given a light show that was unbelievable. That sideways lightning that crosses the sky, and looks for all the world like there really is bowling going on up there in the higher clouds. (I was always told the angels were bowling during these storms, and as they hit the "pins" they'd flash ) It was obvious that the storm had wrapped itself around the north and was heading eastward where we were going, and I could smell the richness of it, not to mention the excitement I was feeling that these lightnings would be nutritional to the newly emerging leaves that were springing out from their cloaks of protectiveness the trees and shrubs had provided. The fairies were working overtime to release and unwrap each little baby leaf on every twig and stem so that they could drink in the airs and moistures they needed along with their mama's nourishments being pumped by the gallons from roots deep in the red clay soils. At the last part of the evening, the storms and light shows arrived full force here on the ridge and back in my holler. Great yellowish branches of lightening shot thru the air, sideways, and downward, one after the other, building momentum as the storm gathered force to push past the mountains that lay eastward of me. At one point, the strikes were so frequent and close that one lit up the eastern window that sits above my desk, as I sat reading the screen on my 'puter, and my desk phone "dinked" and I smelled, saw, and heard the strike all at the same moment. Frantic moments later, I was shutting down the computer hoping I had protected it against anymore powerful surges, since no surge protector can guard against a full lightening strike and this one had jumped into the phone lines to wreck havoc and announce itself. The night was going to be more than I figured on, and with anticipation, I decided to go on to bed, just into 1 a.m. Saturday morning proved me out. The magic that was unleashed with the spring storm had been absolutely obvious. Everything was covered with jewels of water. Every face on every flower was scrubbed. Some so much that they protested by almost dissolving since the frosts had weakened their ethereal beauty a few days ago. The new babies that had started to open, though were out in full force. Everywhere the signs of a feeding frenzy was on the trees and bushes. The nitrogen that the lightening had released had given everyone a boost in color. The fairies had turned up the green on everything. Standing outside in the chill and damp, I went back inside to get a jacket and put on better shoes, and stood outside listening to the estatic weeps of the peepers. They were overjoyed that there was so much water. This meant more places to put more eggs to make more peepers. WONDERFUL!! The birds were singing all the part harmonies and the din of it was glorioius. The smell was intoxicating. I could also smell an impending downpour. The fragrance was overwhelming. It was soaked earth, humus, new life, freshly waterlogged worms, rising up to breath in the soaked soils they lived in. I was obsessed with seeing who had survived the storms and who had welcomed them with open arms. The double narcissus were all flinging off their wrappings, the Cheerfullness, the yellow and the white, the double and triple stemmed narcissus, the poeticus, the split cupped ones that were blooming in the last days of FEbruary still had some sleepers who had wisely stayed put during the false promise of spring weeks prior and were now showing me they were still there, intact but for a bit of frost burn on tender leaves. The chinese almond bush, with it's sad four branches of minature pink pom poms had been beaten up but the remaining tufts of pink and soft white hung on, as well as the tiny white buttons of spirea from a seedling I had saved adn planted next to the spirea. cont........................

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