A shower in the mountains

Thunder is rolling like rocks on gravel, and as I write this the first few drops have begun to fall on the tin roof of the porch.  It’s 4 o’clock, as dark as 8, seventy degrees and cooling.  The smell of rain slowly filling up the air and wet breeze greeting my face.  The rain is showering now, making the meadow look like mist has come down and enveloped it.  Bits of hail intermingle with the rain like it often does this side of summer.  And then, within moments, the fury of rain and ice is disipated, and the clouds begin thinning in the southwest so light floods the falling drops of rain.  Droplets form and drip from the ends of the pine needles as the clouds open up fully and let the sun shine into the shower, turning the droplets into thousands of twinkling lights.  The summer rains aren’t due for another month, perhaps less, but the rolling thunder doesn’t usually accompany those showers, and neither does such cool temperatures, now down to sixty in just 10 or 15 minutes.