My response to precipitation has taken a left turn. Ever since I tucked tiny seedlings and optimistic seeds into my raised beds, I look at the sky and wonder. Will it rain today? One night my phone predicted that it probably would for several hours while both I and the chickens slept, which was ideal. But in the morning the dirt looked dry, and I figured that a 70% likelihood was not a guarantee. I would water by hand. 

Then after breakfast the clouds could no longer hang onto their drops. I smiled. The cucumbers and lettuces would be singing. In the rain.

Chickens too have an affinity for it, or rather immediately after. That is when the worms venture out, and the hens scramble across the road and driveway gobbling up the unsuspecting wigglers. 

Last March there was a late season snow expected, and while many people were miffed, having already put away their shovels and salt, there was one woman whose daughter was in the preschool that felt differently.

"My husband absolutely loves plowing. He is rooting for a big one so he can shove some snow around." The little boy at my feet was making engine sounds as he zoomed wooden trucks across the carpet. 

"Do you like the snow too?" I asked.

"I like to see him happy!" she laughed. 

The first few times I wrangled with two year olds who found a public place to be the perfect stage for a meltdown, I took it personally. This was a reflection on my mothering, and embarrassment precluded any capacity to be calm. But twenty years into it, the terrain became more familiar, and I recognized it as the bumpy transition from you-do-everything-for-me to the next stage of development. Which is part of growing up. While I did not enjoy it as much as say the man plowing snow, I weathered it. 

In that fertile soil, good things can happen.