Travel, Photography

A Thunderstorm in Peter’s Canyon

We finally got some rain in Southern California

Yesterday afternoon, while snuggled in my favorite chair — a reupholstered antique given to me by my great-aunt Sally — with my kitty, Uma, and the latest edition of “Poetry,” I heard the ominous rumbling of thunder.

My chair, also Uma’s favorite, is positioned right by the side-lights on the french doors and faces out to the garden. I tend to leave the windows open during the day so that we can all look out at, and hear, the birds at the feeders.

And those birds were quite excited about that rumbling from the sky and the heaviness in the air. I could smell the rain too. After so many months of drought in Southern California, the rain-moistened air really carries on the wind. The scent of dust and wet sage and pine resin precedes the actual rainfall.

We waited, anxiously, for those first drops. But they never came.

Disappointed, we went through our evening — making dinner and watching the second episode of the new Beatle’s documentary, Get Back, (it is FABULOUS!) and went to bed. About four in the morning though, I woke up to see little Bisou, who is our night time snuggler, perched on the bottom corner of the bed, staring intently towards the window. And I heard it — rain!

It poured for ten minutes or so and then fizzled out. But we were so happy just to get a little moisture.

We woke up in the morning and decided to hike our nearby Peter’s Canyon to see how it looked after the showers.

These yellow flowers at the start of the trail have been exploding lately. I think that they must be drawing moisture from the foggy mornings that we’ve been getting.

But today, they were actually drooping towards the earth from the moisture on their petals.

And at the top of the trail, there is a section of wild sunflowers. Anne Bonfert, this reminded me of you and your love of sunflowers. They looked so bright against that pregnant sky.

As we were walking, we began to hear thunder again. And then my phone buzzed with a weather alert. I have to confess that I am a bit of a weather junkie and have three different apps to track the weather. In a way, it is sort of funny because we don’t get that much weather in Southern California.

I had an alert that lightening had been reported twenty miles away. Then it was ten miles away. Then it was one mile away!

We had already reached the reservoir, where we normally turn around, and were heading back towards the trailhead, when it started to come down.

We took the little side trail that runs by a creek and I did a “Happy Rain Dance.”

And then it started to really pour. This creek runs all year round, although it can get a bit mucky in the summer. There are actually crawfish living in it (which makes my Louisiana husband quite happy).

Some of you might recall the Yerba Mansa photo piece I did this spring. These are the last remnants of those flowers. They’re looking a bit bedraggled, but they were happy to have their feet wet again.

We popped back up onto the main trail and it started to hail — pea size little hail balls!

This is the first shot, but this one’s on a “loop” so that you can see the rain coming down.

At this point, my husband was irritated with me for lolly-gagging in the rain. That’s him, up ahead on the trail.

I looked back at those yellow flowers that we started with. They looked like they were just soaking those droplets of liquid nectar into their very cells.

And I went home to make a cup of tea. And guess who joined me on the blue chair again? What a perfect place to watch the last of the rain dripping off of the trees!

Erika Burkhalter is a yogi, neurophilosopher, cat-mom, photographer, and lover of travel and nature, spreading her love and amazement for Mother Earth’s glories, one photo, poem or story at a time. (MS Neuropsychology, MA Yoga Studies).

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