Singing in the Rain.

7-8-07 VERMONT: On the fourth, we got 0.4 inches of rain and since then another 0.05 and yesterday 0.25 inches. I precipated, pun intended, yesterday’s rain by watering for two hours in the morning. We are still about two inches behind. The pond is down six inches and the little pond is down several feet and almost dry. The rain we have gotten just soaks in, no runoff to fill the ponds.

We have a new turtle in the pond, a painted turtle maybe six inches long. Yesterday morning a deer was drinking from the pond. We have seen foxes on the road a few times. A cedar waxwing was on the hollyhocks a few days ago and a robin has a nest just outside the kitchen window in a viburnum. She is very wary of us and flies off every time I open the refrigator. Those chicks are in trouble.

New blooms: foxglove, mallow.

Yesterday we had tickets for the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. The VSO was in Randolph, a nearby town. The event was a holiday concert that they are giving at several venues around the state, complete with fireworks. Because it was raining most of the afternoon, silly us assumed it would be at the alternate, indoor site. We had the picnic at home, inside, before going to the event assuming the outdoor site would be soaked and unusable. We had folding chairs in the car, but didn’t bring foul weather gear, umbrellas, refreshing beverages, wellingtons or other stuff we might have taken. Who would have an outdoor event in the rain when there was an indoor option, we asked ourselves.

Vermonters are either very hardy or nuts, perhaps both. As you may have guessed it was outside, in the rain. We set up the chairs and found a couple dog blankets in the car, and it wasn’t too bad, a half hour before the start, until the fairly hard rain started, and it cooled off. The VSO was under a huge canopy, we were not. We were near the soundman’s set-up and borrowed a tarp from him when he came to turn his equipment on. He worked, huddled under the tarp covering his gear, mostly just by feel, snaps for him. I said, “If I see my breath, we’re leaving.”

Judy wanted to stick. She saw it as a bonding experience. The concert was fine, light stuff and some show tunes, and started after the dedicatory speeches thanking all the sponsors. By the time the “1812 Overture” finale played, with the fireworks, I knew what Bonaparte’s men felt like on that retreat from Russia. Some folks actually left at the intermission, not us. Fireworks in the fog are interesting, the colors are muted, but the fog acts as a reflecting screen amplifying the color.


Secrets of the Foxglove.