Yesterday was a splendiferous day!
With sunshine most of the day, very little wind, and a mid-60 degree high temperature, late in the day we turned off the furnace and opened up the windows for awhile.
The Scent of Rain
Early in the evening as I was sitting near an open window, I said to Jon, “I smell rain.” When I looked out the window at the back of the house, it wasn’t raining. But when I looked out the windows on the front of the house, I could see that sprinkles were beginning to fall. Within minutes the rain started coming down more steadily.
For a short time I reveled in the lovely scent of the rain.
Rain
It doesn’t last long
Many of the wonders in life are fleeting. Pay attention. Stay present. And soak in the wonder of it all.
There was just a short period of time when the rain had just begun that it smelled so amazing. I wondered why, so I started looking around and found this on EarthSky.org:
The word is “petrichor,” and it’s used to describe the distinct scent of rain in the air. Or, to be more precise, it’s the name of an oil that’s released from the Earth into the air before rain begins to fall.
This heady smell of oncoming wet weather is something most people are familiar with – in fact, some scientists now suggest that humans inherited an affection for the smell from ancestors who relied on rainy weather for their survival.
…
The smell itself comes about when increased humidity – a pre-cursor to rain – fills the pores of stones (rocks, soil, etc) with tiny amounts of water.
While it’s only a minuscule amount, it is enough to flush the oil from the stone and release petrichor into the air. This is further accelerated when actual rain arrives and makes contact with the Earth, spreading the scent into the wind.
— What is the Smell of Rain, https://earthsky.org/earth/whats-that-smell-in-the-air-when-its-about-to-rain
I didn’t know that before. Petrichor. Hmmm…I think I prefer to call it the scent of rain.
Such a simple thing. But it brought me great joy. The scent of rain, fragrance of a flower, odor of bread baking—all of these beautify and enhance our lives every day. Try paying attention to the different odors that enliven your life. (Hopefully they are mostly pleasant odors.) Imagine if you had the capability to sense smells like a dog or cat. A dog can smell week-old human fingerprints and detect scents up to 40 feet underground. Holy Wow!
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
― Auguries of Innocence
Magical Afternoon
I spent part of the afternoon wandering around the yard looking at the new life popping out everywhere. The tiny leaves of spirea bushes looked like tiny little red flowers. I’m not sure why they start out with the red color but I had fun doing close-ups of them. Along with the ferns just beginning to pop up out of the ground and the geese that stopped by, I was charmed by all of the life everywhere around me.
We don’t have a fancy garden. In fact because we’re both getting older we have intentionally simplified our yard. But still a wide variety of life remains to be seen every day. We try to leave it wild around the edges and it is always the wild things that enchant me the most. As I walked beside the pond I could see that it was truly a giant petri dish that supports all kinds of life forms.
The pond is a giant petri dish
A World Filled with Extraordinary Wonder
Every day I discover some new magic in the world, a slice of light, the shape and color of a leaf, the sound of a bird, the feeling of the breeze on my skin, or the beauty of nature’s creatures.
What wonder will you discover today?
May you walk in beauty (and wonder).
Peony plant emerging
Sky After the Rain
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