A hard rain

The NOAA weather alerts were ominous: up to four inches of rain was forecast, with winds gusting to fifty miles per hour. After seemingly storing up rain all during this warm, dry April, the skies opened last night and by this afternoon a couple of inches of rain had fallen. Puddles in the lawn, puddles on either side of the car and the truck, but in the garden no puddles, seeds not washing away, not yet anyway. Here on the island, thin topsoil conspires with rocky ledge near the ground's surface to make it hard to absorb so much water in so short a time; yet so far the garden soil has absorbed it. A healthy garden soil of good tilth with plenty of organic matter will be more absorbent than the soil beneath a lawn. How much longer before puddling I can't say, but the rain is supposed to stop tonight and I will see tomorrow. If I could order rain, it would come gently at night, and not every night: just enough for what's growing, and a little more as the peas fill out in the pods.