In: Lion.

There was a warm spring wind and the smell of rain and even actual rain, however briefly, on a late-night dogwalk last night, but there was never even enough rain to make the street entirely wet— just freckled with the very last remnants of the very bottom end of the storm that did, in fact, hold together over the mountains, but came entirely apart as it crossed us. It rained west, and then it rained east after it came back together, and what we got out of it was a hint, a promise, a half-hour on the porch with the dog right around eleven last night and a small whiskey and an odd warmness to the wet air and deep thick cloud cover and all that wind.

So we miss by a hair's breadth for February, by a ton for January, and what it all means is that while the southern drought eases across enough of the south for the newsies to mention it from time to time, for us and our kind here in the dead damn flat center of NC, the D4 drought carries on and carries on and carries on. I won't complain about February. It rained frequently enough for me to remember that from time to time it does, in fact, rain here. It rained frequently enough for me to hold out a wee tiny bit of hope for March. And here's where we check the ten-day: one chance of rain—one—in the whole thing. But hope is not about checking the ten-day. Hope is dumber and blinder than that.

It is a day here in 27408 of genuinely impressive beauty, though, still windy and warm and the kind of day when you want to try the last of the coffee out here on the porch. The dog knows the word 'porch,' knows the difference between front and back porch, likes not much more than to sit out here and taste the wind and from time to time taste a bug. I think I like not much more than that, too. I just wish it had rained.

The dog's lying down in the sun. The daylilies are starting up. More daffodils in the yard than I remember planting. I need a project. I need to dig a hole, or go figure out where I put the circular saw. Get me an extension cord. Get me the filthy, destroyed jeans. Maybe what I'll do is take the Christmas lights down off the house. The weather's about right for a thing like that.