rainy day maple

I don't know why I had high hopes for this storm. Maybe, at heart, I'm a precipitation optimist; maybe I'm just delusional. In any event, I read the forecasts, felt sufficient pains in my joints to assure myself that something big was coming, battened down the hatches, well, the woodpile tarps, and kept my fingers crossed. I needn't have bothered. Oh, we got plenty of wind, but all the rain, along with a large amount of snow, fell north and east of us. In the end, there was barely a quarter-inch in the gauge, so the drought will continue. Late in the afternoon, when there was not much more than a hint of moisture in the air, I ventured out along the usual path. The wind had brought down lots of leaves and the persistent mist had done some interesting design work, bejeweling the foliage.