rain, rain, go away!

It's the last week of school! YAY!

Yesterday, it RAINED! In capital letters! The river flooded, and we got to make big waves as we zoomed through in Sean's new truck. Leaving all those tiny cars sitting. Haha! Sam put on a rain jacket, baggies, and goggles and snorkel and went out into it. He says don't try this at home, folks, the rain falls into the snorkel faster than you can blow it out.

This rainy season, we have seen one-third of our average rain so far, and rainy season ends in January. Are we going to have three inches of rain a day till then, to catch up? Part of me hopes not.

I like dry. Blue skies? Bring 'em on! Mildew? BAH! Usually the rainy season is just six months of floods, mold, and our garden path to the car turning into an actual flowing river. Small children on their way to school fall in with all of their belongings and have to go back home for a complete change of clothing, shoes and schoolbag. Leave your wallet on the kitchen table for the weekend, and it will have a film of green, blue, orange, grey, white and black mold growing on it. Try to wipe it off and it becomes a gazillion minuscule spores which rush to adhere themselves to board games, belts, clothes, books, furniture, and hand-stitched wool Nepalese rugs, causing untold duress and gnashing and wailing.

Every cupboard in our house has a 25-watt lightbulb in it, to keep the contents warm and dry. This is a fire hazard. Once, we saw this bucket thing which claimed to trap moisture and last for months. We bought some, put them into our dryest cupboard, the one with the photos and stuff, and a week later they were full of water. To the brim. Which just goes to prove something, I don't know what.

When two inches or more of rain fall in an afternoon, several things happen:

No Trini can drive. They have to put their hazard lights on, further impeding visibility and annoying those of us who would like to slowly wend our way home.

Our garden becomes a series of springs and mires.

The chickens all get wet and annoyed and look really not very cute. They want to come in, where they can crap on everything, fly into a panic and knock things off of shelves.

Chickland road floods.

The dog has to go out and come in several times, and shake all over things.

The mystery leaks, leak.

My Dad gets very excited and makes notes and calculations in his book of rainfall.

The boys make clothespeg jockeys, and race them in the river. I have to buy more clothespegs.

We realise that the umbrellas are where we aren't.

The boys get wet accidentally-on-purpose, and have to change 17 times. Wet clothes are draped everywhere, where they drip for days but never dry. Mildew grows on them.

I get grouchy, because I am a desert dweller at heart. I actually like the dry season; The pink and yellow poui flowers, the grapefruits and portugals, the butterflies, the shapes of the trees when they lose their leaves. I like making plans to go somewhere and knowing that it WILL NOT RAIN!

Our tanks runneth over with water. Nine thousand gallons in two cisterns, plus a 300 gallon tank by the young trees and plants, which is all we will have to last the long dry season. When that is gone, we will have to buy water by the truckload. That is a pain, not to mention expensive.

But I cannot help rejoicing at the glorious blue sky this morning! It is beeooteeful!

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