Puddlestompers
Sunday October 17th 2010, 11:18 pm
Filed under: Family,Wildlife

Don’t stomp in the puddles! You’ll get your feet wet!

Well, yes; that’s what puddles are for, aren’t they?

One of the treasures of my childhood was all the times when, on returning from following the trails and climbing over the rocks and splashing around in nearby Cabin John Creek, my mother would look us over appraisingly with a big grin and pronounce, “You must have had FUN getting THAT dirty!”

If you remember, the peregrine falcons who fudged their fledge the first time got rescued by Glenn Stewart, the UCSC biologist in charge of the peregrine recovery project. He would scoop them off the ground, (like this time) put them in a box, and take them up the elevator back to the nest area–and before releasing them would give them a good soaking so they couldn’t try to get away from him in a panic till they’d dried off enough and recovered, by which time he’d be long out of sight.

So. Today, after their usual six months’ vacation, the clouds came back and started back to work. Rain! I remember rain… (My children do not believe in this myth of warm summer rains back East. Rain is never in summer. And it is always ocean-cold. Or so they say.)

With the new camera up on City Hall this year and its new views, there was one of our peregrine parents, EC, this afternoon. On the 18th floor louver. Spreading his wings open to the rain, then splashing across the louver to the other end, turning again, his wings wide to the sky still.  Puddles incoming! Catch me if you can! And he flew off into his game of tag with the raindrops.

And Clara flew from her tree to join him.


4 Comments so far
Leave a comment

When my kids were preschoolers we looked forward to rainy days. I would put them in oversized T-shirts and throw off our shoes and splash through every puddle we could find! It was great fun and now I look forward to having the same fun with Moose. It’s only water! And now I have a bunch of photos to remember the fun.

Comment by Jody 10.18.10 @ 5:52 am

One of my mother’s favorite songs was Singing in the Rain. She loved to play in a warm rain too!

Comment by Channon 10.18.10 @ 6:38 am

Well, my birds don’t get out to splash in puddles, or anything else. Pepper takes her bath in her water cup. Singing in the Rain reminds me of Gene Kelly in the movie of the same name, singing that song, and splashing around like crazy.

Comment by Don Meyer 10.18.10 @ 9:25 am

Some of my fondest memories are playing out in the rain.

And thanks for pointing out the source of your colorful header…what a story! I’m glad you finally got your angora — a shame it was chewed up — but you made some pretty things from it nonetheless!

Comment by twinsetjan 10.18.10 @ 3:50 pm



Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

(required)

(required)