New Bern, Can We Have Some of Your Rain?

As I was driving 70 towards New Bern, I could see it. Off in the distance of this sunny, blue sky day, Rain. It was grey ahead, and getting darker. The trees on the side of the road separated me from the really dark grey. I was driving parallel to the river, now the rain highway.

I had come from Durham. Yes, we had some rain this weekend, but not enough to green anything up. We are still short due to four weeks of no rain. The ground is 100° baked hard. What little rain we got rolled down hill.

Now I was driving into a storm I was desperate for, but at home. Sure enough, just before I got to my exit to go to Trent Woods the rain came hard. Quickly huge puddles formed on each side of the road. Sign that this was not their first rain.

The neighborhood was flooded. Volunteer lakes sprung up in yards. Lucky ducks, and tomatoes and lawns.

I pulled into a little park, as I was early for my class and watched as a mother bird supervised her chicks in a bath in their newly formed baby pool in the grass. The tiny birds, splashed like toddlers in yellow boots. The mama found a worm pushed up from the saturated ground by the new deluge forcing the worms to float.

Rain sure makes me happy. Now, please go on up to Durham. Our Mama birds need you too.