H. Two. Ohhhhh.

The dark gray clouds lumbered in from the west, dragging their bottoms over the soggy mountains.  The water dropping from these sluggish clouds was like that coming off a ledge-less waterfall.  The valley, its pool.  Water ran off roof tops, gathered in puddles, and became streams of murky watery ponds.  

Mules kicked up their heals, swooshed their tails, and ran to cover under the barn.  Birds tucked deep into the pine trees for cover, and hawks and buzzards took the toil of the event, water running off their feathers.  

Today, it rained again.  Most of the day.  The fields are full of blooming alfalfa, golden barley fields, and wheat.  The wet air smells of green plants, wet dirt, and a bit of mustieness.  Tractors with hay rakes are parked in fields.  Center pivots sit where they were shut off.  The farmers pace and fret.  By now in most years, everyone is finishing up.  Today, many have not even begun and if they have, their crop lies cut in the field, a heaping row of rotting, wet plant material.  Sad.  

The dogs and I snuck a three mile walk in this morning suffering only a few rain drops.  Rooster came out of the brush covered in hounds tongue seeds, looking like he had a good case of the measles.  Ruby stays on the road.  Balls of mud cut across our path, the evidence of an elk crossing.  Their tracks deep in the mud, tell that story.  Missing a walk yesterday, the hounds were primed to run across the soggy fields, cut through the tall curing grasses, and forget that hounds tounge sticks to dog fur.  That walk did us all a whole lot of good. 

The season has turned.  Days are shorter.  Mornings cool.  Fall is here.  The elk have not yet begun bugling but soon, soon we will be hearing that magical sound of the mountains.  The Canada geese are bunching up, getting fat on the standing barely.  The hummingbird population has dwindled; their peers flying south for a warmer future. 

The turning of seasons always makes me thankful I made it through another season unscathed.  Teetering between summer and fall and now fall looking toward winter, I imagine long winter walks and skis with the dogs over a landscape quieted by frost, allowed to rest a bit before the madness of growing in a very short season begins again.