Rain-drenched Reflections

Last night the rain came down so hard that it was almost as loud on the roof of the house upstairs as it is on a tent.  Amazing downpour.  And I mourned for my tomatoes, still green and so little chance of those beautiful fruits ripening and then I remembered that rain brings mushrooms and a good rain this time of year brings a wonderful and earlier flush of delicious treasures I get to search out.  So as I mourn, I rejoice.

I look forward to walking through the moist lush forests as the season changes from summer to fall.  The dripping of water from the trees, the falling of bright colored leaves.  The glistening of water droplets on the needles of the evergreens. The glow of the golden leaves of the maples and alders like a sun themselves in the forest.  The smell of moist crisp air and then the distinct smell of mushrooms popping up out of the forest floor.  Sometimes faint, sometimes pungent.  The strong scent of a lobster mushroom can stop me as I walk along the trail and I start sniffing about, searching for where that treasure might be hidden.  All the shapes that start to emmerge again in the trees as the leaves fall.  Bare branches against the darker green backdrop of the firs and ceders.  The mixed flocks of birds flitting together from branch to branch.  Watching 20 or more bushtits descend on the ocean spray seed heads, joining the chickaddes that dangle upside down from the tips of the branches, gobbling up seeds and insects while cheerily chatting away.   And I chat right back, talking to my cheery featherd friends, basket on my arm, full of fall fungal treasures and an autumn leaf or two or three....