Rain Old Friend- welcome back, where have you been?

There has been excitement for the weather forecasters lately, bad weather on the way. Good. This has apparently been the most dry (or perhaps the most hot?) year since 1918.
I know its probably not a particularly popular opinion for most people, but I'm really happy to see Mr Rain coming to visit for a few days. We've had just about all sun (hot type) for a long time now and I have been missing Mr Rain as has the land.  He generally hangs about round here quite a lot, I remember one February (99 I think it was), when Mr Rain came and stayed for a whole month.

 Rain- so much more than just a way of making Rainbows.
We were working is smallish Sitka at the time and got soaked every day- everything, everywhere was wet , all the time, but when you work outdoors in Scotland, its not uncommon to have "precipitation anticipation" or be expecting some rain in other words. You soon get to know it of course and I've sometimes thought that I could match the Innuit's 80 whatever words for snow* with easily as many types of rain. If you were then to describe the accompanying weather pattern you would be into the hundreds. For example in Autumn in Scotlands most East- West aligned glen, we often have this pattern of really hot sunshine followed immediately by hard wet rain, they come in bands, one after another and can last for seconds a few minutes or ages, a bit like when you are out in the Islands and can see Mr Rain's little helpers scurrying about on the horizon with their little black sacks full of water to dump on wherever takes their fancy.

These Autumnal bands are nuts to work in, Its cold when it rains and the waters pouring off you, Then Lugh the Sun God jumps in and suddenly you are Roasty McToasty and steam is pouring off you. It is for me, weather like that that always puts me off the idea off moving to a hot country, You know (perhaps you don't, maybe its just me?) how it is, you go somewhere abroad. Really hot, "nice" Mediterranean type weather, your'e on holiday, everything's lovely, food, people, culture etc. At some point you idly wonder about moving there, wouldn't it be nice, ooh yes wouldn't it. Then by week 2 reverse cabin fever starts a little chant in your head " The weathers a bit boring isn't it?" "A bit of rain would sort out all this dust" "Its too hot to....do anything", " The weathers a bit boring isn't it?" and the answer is yes their continental weather patterns are pretty boring compared to our maritime climate.

So after having only had about 6 weeks in which it has rained since February, and having had almost unbroken and let me say, very beautiful blue skies right through from the winter snow to now, I'm glad for a few wet days, and from a view point other than the anthropocentric, all the flora and fauna are needing it too. Its strange though because although it must have been especially harsh for the Salmon Parr this year, trying to get upstream with so little flow, the wildlife especially insects and amphibians is really abundant this year. Frogs and toads being the most obvious example of that following the first drops of rain.

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 I think this is an "Andrewlloydus webberus", but my toad ID is not very good.

One of many amphibians I encountered while doing some moisture measurements the other day.

Almost invisible in this photo; Camouflage and too small a photo size combine to hide a frog. I'll give you a clue, its not on the moisture meter.

Prior to that Insects were coming in vibrant bursts, during one particularly pleasant and colourful week there were Dragon and Damsel flies emerging everywhere, very sparkly in that ongoing, vaguely relentless sunshine. A few weeks before that it had been hover flies, truly remarkable close up like so many insects, and somewhere imbetween had begun the relentless march of the Beetles, as some but not loads of butterflies flitter overhead. I have seen a few lizards and slowworms have also been about (mostly victims of cars or cats), with the reptiles it constantly seems like some (usually unusually hot) years you see quite a few, some years you see none. What has been lacking of late in their usual abundance is Bee's, I keep hoping they are just a bit late gathering their numbers after the late frosts (the Midgies certainly are - Hooray), but I remain kind of concened.

T

There were blue and red dragon/ damsel flies all over the place, far too busy to stop for a photo. This picture in no way does justice to their colour.

  

Nearby here is a bank of Comfrey, which is grown for many reasons, as it has many uses. One is that the bees adore it, last year there were so many bees of so many varieties on it that it was almost anthill like in its hypnotic effect, you would see a few bees at first, then ten, twenty, a hundred, more, till there just seemed to be bees everywhere. This year it is more like 5, 10, 14, 20, 21 or is that the same one again, there is just not the abundance that there should be. Hopefully it is still just a bit early in the season for them and everything else is a bit ahead.

T

There should be umpteen bees in here- lets hope there will be soon. 
I met a nice and very interesting chap here the other day, while he was fixing a dyke (damaged by a bull) that he had built some time ago. He told me that the latest research on bees suggests that it is microwaves that are decimating bee populations, such as those used and emitted from Mobile phones. This is very worrying when you think how many people have them now, not just here but across the world.

Norman Haddow, a master craftsman at work.
They don't work in the glen, but the signals do leak through here and there for patient teenagers on holiday who will wait half an hour by a particular rock for a text to come through (it probably said "I'm on the train").
There is also a phone mast (for military use only) and also if you want to receive a TV signal you will need a satellite signal - Microwaves again.   
Anyway I have become diverted, I was going to talk about the rain and the sun and how everything as always needs to be in balance. Too much of either is not good and while we used to pray to Lugh and countless other sun gods for a good harvest, I bet we rarely did it with the concentrated fervour and immediate need that native American plains Indians would have carried out a rain dance. The rain dance as I understand it (a much misused term now) started as drought set in and continued until it rained. Participants danced and chanted until they dropped from exhaustion, when they recovered they got up and carried on, a trance like state was seemingly entered which perhaps helped to deal with the ongoing effect of dehydration. If it did not rain, drought, followed by famine and eventual death was a certainty. In rainy countries, somethings always growing so there is always something to eat, (read any John Muir book for proof- nice plate of Lichen anyone, this moss is very juicy?).

My little place in the country- I have been building this summerhouse for years, nearly finished now.


 *Peter Hoeg's "Miss Smillas feelings for Snow" discusses and explains these Inuit words very well.