Code Red

Our changeable April weather continues to surprise us each day.  This morning, with light rain forecast for mid-morning, I drove to Town and began running early, the skies so overcast that I left my sunglasses in the car.  As I have noted in this blog many times in recent weeks, Highlands in Stay-at-Home mode is an eerie place on Saturday mornings.  Founders Park, normally-bustling with the Farmers Market, was empty, and not a single vehicle was parked on Pine Street.  So, too, was Main Street; I ran down one side and back up the other, and suddenly bright sunshine burst through the clouds.  Karen was at the Park when I returned at 9:00 a.m., and I ended up running three of my six miles with her in convivial conversation, glad for some company.  I realized that other than Martha, my only socially-distanced contact with other people all week was a brief chat with the check-out ladies at Bryson's grocery, and that took place behind a mask.

I completed the last mile by myself, picking up the pace a little as it began to rain.  It is always a satisfying feeling to complete a run just as it begins to rain (rather than the opposite), and as I drove down empty Main Street to the Post Office, I had my windshield wipers on.  But by the time I had emerged after checking my mail, the sun was brightly shining, and that's the way it stayed all morning.  I had not planned to do any work on the fence project because of the forecast rain, but the weather remained beautiful all afternoon, and I had plenty of time to set the last fence post and to temporarily attach the handrail along the stone steps.  What a surprise, too, to encounter no large roots or rocks in the last two holes, which seemed to be a reward for the backbreaking work in digging the first four holes.

My initial doubts about building the fence in this location have disappeared as each section fell into place, and now it is exciting to realize that there are only a few more details remaining before we paint the posts and mount them with bird-houses as planned. 

I sat out on the deck for awhile late in the afternoon, watching high clouds moving out of the southwest very swiftly overhead, and yet there was not much wind.  I set the table on the deck for dinner, but the sun quickly disappeared and the wind picked up, so we moved inside.  Still, it had not yet begun to rain.  After dinner, we were watching a new episode of Vivian Howard's new show on PBS, Somewhere South, and suddenly I received a message on my mobile phone.  Our emergency notification network is working well in Macon  County, I thought, as I read CODE RED WEATHER WARNING.  THE NWS HAS ISSUED A TORNADO WARNING FOR YOUR SASSAFRAS GAP ROAD LOCATION FROM 7:50 PM UNTIL 8:15 PM.  At the same time, it began to rain, very hard rain.  I looked at the radar app on my phone and it was red, not yellow or orange but solid red, like the bullseye on a dart board.

I went outside on the covered part of the deck to see how our yard was faring - not too badly, other than the little waterfall out back roaring with brown mud, and our rain barrel hopelessly overwhelmed and flooding the yard above the garden beds.   The sound of rain on the tin roof was deafening.  It reminded me of that line in one my my favorite Tom Waits song, Time:

The band is going home;
It's raining hammers, it's raining nails.

Within a half-hour, it had all stopped, almost as suddenly as it had begun.  And we were thankful that, if there had been a tornado whirling in that loud tumult and commotion, it had avoided our house.