Today – Rain with a few thunderstorms – some locally heavy downpours are possible, especially during the afternoon hours. High 71 °F (21.7 °C). Winds SE at 10 to 20 mph. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected.

Tonight – Showers and thunderstorms likely. A few storms may be severe. Low 66 °F (18.9 °C). Winds S at 10 to 20 mph (16.1 to 32.2 kph). Chance of rain 90%.

It is a great day, if you are a duck. I know where my raincoat is- it is in the back of the JG’s Explorer, which is now in the garage at the Farm after I washed the bird crap off of it that came with the swallows nesting in the beams of the barn above it. In order to make room in the actual garage, more boxes had to be emptied, and then the contents moved into the cavernous rear of the SUV.

Sooner or later it is all going to be cleared out and a nice workbench set up with all the tools in the right places. But I couldn’t do much about that even if I was down there today. I am behind on fighting the weeds that are coming up through the gravel, and the rain is going to make the grass high as an elephant’s eye by the time I get back to cut it again.

Being as how the coat is in Culpeper and I am not, it is not going to be doing me much good today as a couple inches of water submerge us.

I started out this morning with an analysis of some government numbers- doesn’t really matter, they are all clever fabrications these days- regardless of which ones you look at.

I mean, there is a Bureau of Labor Statistics report that 20% of American families do not have a working member. And then we have the same BLS report whatever it is we are supposed to think is the official unemployment rate, which this month is reported to be 6.7%.

It is sort of sad- once you get into the business of twisting things for the best possible interpretation, and everyone knows it, why would you believe anything the Government says?

Then someone rolled a hand grenade into the morning communications about the North Carolina study on multiple voting….ah, you know, the systematic thing that is supposed to be rarer than getting hit by lightning. Yawn. They are just getting better at it.

Anyway, I can’t get all energized about it because of the rain. It is dark and the blacktop outside is boiling as the bands of clouds sweep through. I like it when it rains. It makes me want to stay in bed. It makes me want to…well, you know what it is like when it rains and the window is cracked just a bit open and the fresh moist air, redolent of earth and growing things wafts in and the eiderdown is so wonderfully conformant to the body and there is the smell of fresh-ground coffee there waiting in the kitchen just in case you ever felt like getting up to go investigate it.

And the merry sound of eggs frying in the cast iron skillet. Well, that would be the sound If I could pry myself out of this marvelous cocoon. End of April, this soggy month came in like a lion and is going out moist and gentle as a lover’s kiss.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303