Being from the Midwest, I was raised with weather. After spending many years under serene Californian skies, I grew to really miss these wonders of nature.

My grandmother taught us how to predict the weather by the way the leaves on the trees blew in the wind. I thought that was the neatest thing. I didn’t have to wait for the radio reports on the transistor anymore.

We would watch the storms roll in off the lake. “Alright, its time to get out of the water and come inside NOW” my mother would shout. “Why?” was always our inane response as we would surface from the 62 degree waters of Saginaw Bay. It wasn’t but minutes once we were inside the back door, all three of us kids huddled and dripping on the 2’ x 3’ mat that the first lightening strike would hit.

One lazy summer day while looking for things to keep themselves out of trouble, my brother and his buddy had built a fort on the beach. These two twelve year old general contractors scrounged up some old rusty nails and hammered my grandmother’s wool blankets into a fallen birch tree. In its horizontal position, the limb made a perfect master beam for the tent. They secured the bottom of the blankets in the sand by strategically placing rocks around the edges. It was as cool as my puka shell necklace wearing brother.

With afternoon came that day’s thunderstorm. Chris begged my mother to stay in the tent during the storm. “Why not, we’ll be IN the tent, we will be safe”, he argued. “Besides, I looked at the sky, this storm is just going to skirt us” he reported in his best meteorologist-in-training voice. Being ten years old, I thought he had a great point and couldn’t see how anyone would disagree with this ingenious idea. In fact, I asked if I could go too! “No one is going to be in that tent when this storm hits” she insisted. End of conversation.

The leaves started to blow “that” way. The storm had arrived. Then one blinding flash and deafening thunder clap hit at the same time. “Do you think it hit Klepser’s cottage?” my little sister, the youngest meteorologist-in-training gingerly inquired. Couldn’t tell, but no one was going outside until Mom gave the all-clear.

In our after-storm survey of the immediate beach area, we came upon the infamous tent. It was in a heap on the sand. The lightening had struck the tent dead on and all the nails that had been so meticulously pounded into the trunk were now strewn among the debris. The master beam that had held the structure so safely together was split in two lying on top of the blankets. The once thought safe haven was practically smoldering with the after affects of the jolt. Mom was right once again.

Fast forward thirty-some years to June 27, 2006, Rio Rancho, NM. The leaves in my neighbor’s trees were telling me we were in for a doozy of a drenching. It was exciting to watch the squall develop and even more thrilling to watch my full trash cans tip over and open up. I knew if I didn’t do something I would be the one out there later picking up my own trash from the neighbor’s yard. I had a choice to make and no time to make it.

As my husband and two daughters watched me from the safety of the dining room window, I braved the high winds and pelting rain to the end of my driveway. As I came to the horizontal cans, I began to retrieve my garbage as quickly as the storm was blowing it away. There I was in my high heels, silk blouse and pearl necklace stooped over grabbing stinking tuna cans, nasty chicken bones and half empty juice boxes with my backside into the wind. What a visual.

That old saying “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone” is true. I love Rio Rancho’s weather. Although next time I will remember to wait until the storm has passed to put my trash cans to the curb.