The Rain Coast
Sitting in my rocking chair on the verandah last night, listening to the frogs singing in the rain and the distant roar of the ocean as it pounded the dunes, I counted my blessings. I especially thanked God for rain. Our pagan ancestors worshipped the sun. The sun is an obvious sustainer of life but I think, if I were a pagan, I would rather worship rain. The sun can pretty much be counted on but rain is fickle, unreliable but just as essential as the sun.
I spent nearly half of my life in the rainiest part of South Africa, the east coast, where 40 inches fell every summer usually at sunset when huge electrical storms would rush in from the Indian Ocean and shake the earth with great explosions of lightning and roof-rattling thunder. But most of South Africa gets less than 20 inches a year - just like San Francisco where I spent most of the other half of my life. Even England where I spent 8 years, and which is supposedly is very rainy, only averages 20 to 30 inches a year.
From the redwoods of Mendocino county in California through the douglas firs of the Oregon coast and Washington's Olympic Peninsula, it is rain forest. We average 70 inches of rain a year. It's sometimes less and then our wells run dry but it's often more - like now when the Russian River in Northern California is over ten feet above flood level and the town of Guerneville is under water - again - and Highway 101 along the Pacific coast is closed in many spots.
On some of the peaks of the coastal ranges of California, Oregon and Washington, up to 180 inches of rain have been known to fall in one year. It's very wet here. It's a rain forest. We have more rain here than most places on earth. That's why I moved here. My ancient pagan genes hidden deep in my DNA worship rain.
It finally stopped raining this afternoon after raining for the past two weeks. When my sister arrived at the beginning of December, we had a dry spell which lasted for a week. The price we paid for the glorious sunny sixty degree days of that dry spell was freezing cold nights in the twenties with heavy frosts.
Then it started raining and the day-time temps were in the 50s. The nights were muggy and in the 40s. It's supposed to start raining again tomorrow for another week or so. The frogs will be so happy and so will I.
I spent nearly half of my life in the rainiest part of South Africa, the east coast, where 40 inches fell every summer usually at sunset when huge electrical storms would rush in from the Indian Ocean and shake the earth with great explosions of lightning and roof-rattling thunder. But most of South Africa gets less than 20 inches a year - just like San Francisco where I spent most of the other half of my life. Even England where I spent 8 years, and which is supposedly is very rainy, only averages 20 to 30 inches a year.
From the redwoods of Mendocino county in California through the douglas firs of the Oregon coast and Washington's Olympic Peninsula, it is rain forest. We average 70 inches of rain a year. It's sometimes less and then our wells run dry but it's often more - like now when the Russian River in Northern California is over ten feet above flood level and the town of Guerneville is under water - again - and Highway 101 along the Pacific coast is closed in many spots.
On some of the peaks of the coastal ranges of California, Oregon and Washington, up to 180 inches of rain have been known to fall in one year. It's very wet here. It's a rain forest. We have more rain here than most places on earth. That's why I moved here. My ancient pagan genes hidden deep in my DNA worship rain.
It finally stopped raining this afternoon after raining for the past two weeks. When my sister arrived at the beginning of December, we had a dry spell which lasted for a week. The price we paid for the glorious sunny sixty degree days of that dry spell was freezing cold nights in the twenties with heavy frosts.
Then it started raining and the day-time temps were in the 50s. The nights were muggy and in the 40s. It's supposed to start raining again tomorrow for another week or so. The frogs will be so happy and so will I.
posted by Joubert at 4:47 PM
The Alliance
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