Sunday Evening Storm

I sat outside on the front porch for an hour this evening. There was a thunderstorm passing our way and I couldn't resist. I took a cup of tea and a shawl and pulled a rocking chair close to the house so I wouldn't get too damp.

I've never paid that much attention to the different voices of thunder. There's the booming, rolling roar that is felt as much as heard, and there's also the quiet, rolling whisper that seems to go on and on. When the storm was right on top of me, it sounded more like a hammer shattering a gigantic pane of glass. The peals of thunder would overlap just behind the flashes of lightning.

The storm finally passed and the voices of the thunder were replaced by the voices of the birds. I could hear several jays screaming at each other in a tree up the lane. There were 3 mourning doves on the wire along the lane... not together, but solitary distances apart. The whoooo whoooo they called seemed the perfect sound to follow the pounding of the thunder earlier.

Those birds were all at a distance from me. The hummers were not.

My rocking chair was about 4 feet from the hummingbird feeder. While the rain was still pouring from the sky, the first hummer arrived. He buzzed up to the feeder and was immediately joined by another who beeped at him and they both zipped off. In the passage of an hour, those 2 and at least one other made stops at the feeder. Sometimes one would drink quietly alone, and other times one would run another one off. When they whirred off, they would head to one of the pecan trees and light on the end of a leaf. They aren't heavy enough to make the leaf stem bend.

It was such a sensory experience to sit out there for that time. I want to keep the sound and the feel of it in my heart, just in case I need it.....

Update: El just pointed out the back window. I had to add these: