You know those days when you look at the satellite picture and the big white swirls are coming up from the southwest? When you look toward the mountains all you see is mist, and then the rain starts sliding in at a slant and you have to pull up the hood on your raincoat. When you stop the truck and wade through the last patch of soggy snow to the trailhead, only to find the trail snow-free, its surface pounded firm by the rain. As far as you can see, the trail beckons. And the river is in full thrashing motion, all that water squeezed through a rocky chute, gravity and centrifugal force battling for domination. The Cooper River has a loud voice right now. Looking upstream, you can see dwindling scraps of snowpack under the trees. And you think to yourself how clean the woods are at this point between winter and summer, as they are just now emerging from the wild isolation of the dark season, opening to flowers, birds, people. Spring is an invitation to go further up the trail, deeper into the forest. Even the rain would not hold you back, if you really wanted to go.
That’s how it was out there today.
In The Rainshadow 
I’m going up there now, in my mind if not my body, drawn by your words. On another note, I just heard my first Swainson’s Thrush, my all-time favorite spring bird. Do you have them in your (large) neck of the woods?
We do indeed, and I love the Swainson’s and Hermit equally. They are both magical singers, bringing early summer to these woods like nobody else.