A mellow Sunday at the ranch, cleaning and straightening things, catching up on some paper work. The dogs and I took a 2-mile hike in the rain this afternoon, and it was raining pretty well, some 3 inches.
Right before sunset, just after an hour when it was pelting particularly hard, the rain just stopped. As it was time to feed the horse, I collected up the hound dogs and we started down to the corral.
The rain hadn’t just stopped, the sky had opened up underneath the clouds for miles, and I could see all the surrounding mountains, ocean and the city lights beginning to come on. The mountains were silent, with none of the birds or animals about. The air was crisp and absolutely still, and you could hear little streams running all over the ranch as if dozens of fire hoses had been left running. The sound of water echoed under my oak trees and against the canyon walls.
The quiet caught my attention and I stopped on the ridge and looked around. The chaparral is all in bloom, with the ceanothus bushes covered with white blossoms, and some parts of the mountains looked like they had a dusting of snow. Everything else was dripping wet and emerald green, The ridge to the east of Solstice canyon had a razor thin layer of fog over it, that curved with the shape of the hill, but in less than a minute it disappeared. The sky was filled with massive and unbroken clouds, a mixture of grey and black, but directly above me was a break in the sky, and the clear evening light was shining down on my home.
The clouds had parted just enough to show the first new moon of the month, with the slightest edge of the crescent moon brilliantly lit. Directly below the moon Venus hung like a diamond.
All five dogs seemed to sense that I was watching, because the usual antics of snuffling, wrestling and running about stopped. They stood around me looking in all directions; some with noses in the air, trying to figure out what caught dad’s attention. A coyote? Lion? Fox? Deer?
They looked so comical I laughed, and the air was so still it echoed across the ravine. They all turned and looked at me, wagging their tails and wondering what the joke was. We started back down to the corral where I fed Traveler who was busy charging at the dogs while they ducked for cover (even Rotweillers respect a 1,600 pound horse!). After tossing the hay into the feeder I looked around again, but the moment was gone. The sky had closed, the night had come, and the rain started sprinkling again. But I felt like I had been given a special gift, one to good to keep to myself.
Don Schmitz