A Day of Rain in May | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: Please join me in welcoming Author Michele Rhem, who presents us with her poignant memoirs of the Rabbit Patch, where her diaries weave tales of a simpler, expressive life lost to many, but gathered together in her most familiar environs - the Rabbit Patch.

    Schools are closed today, due to stormy weather. The rabbit patch is wet and puddles stand all about the territory. It is mid morning and the lamps are still on, as clouds are thick and heavy with more rain. I was up early as usual and the sound of the rain on any other day would have begged me not to stir, but last night we were warned of circumstances like tornadoes-so I fixed coffee and watched it rain.

    Thankfully, there has been little wind-of course, the roof sprang a leak and we had to retrieve a pot from the pantry, that I would rather be cooking soup in. I suppose that is the next repair. "It is always something" rings true at the rabbit patch. It is hard to complain, though, when the yard is full of flowers. It is hard to complain, when you live in the dear Farm Life community surrounded by kind neighbors. It does not seem right to grumble when I see my boxer, Cash and two naughty kittens dozing by the morning table.

    Kyle and Christian are home, so I have found another pot and soup is simmering. I decided on tomato and basil and the effect of the aroma is a perfect companion to a rainy day. There is so much to do on a rainy week day and because it isn't common for me to be home-well, I want to do all of it. I want to write and read. I want to cook and watch an old movie. It is the perfect day for napping, but it is also the perfect day to cook. I would like to watch the irises grow, too. It is a delightful quandary, to be in.

    In May, children find kittens-rain or shine. It has always been so. I remember my own children finding kittens. You would have thought they had found gold. How in the world, they drug kittens from under the barn or from a hollow log,EVERY year was beyond me. I was always caught up in their excitement initially, but then there was finding homes and God forbid one got sick-and they always did. The mother cats slipped back to their old life and never looked back. I would see them sashaying across the yard or napping in the shade. They ran in any direction, except mine, when I called to them. So, I was left with kittens, while the children looked for more. You will never convince a child that finding kittens is not a good thing. To them, it is nothing short of a miracle. Today, some mother will allow her children outside to play in the puddles. She should know, they are liable to find kittens. I myself, seem to find kittens ever so often-and not because I have searched the trenches. A few years ago, just as the bank was closing, I walked into the parking lot and about tripped over a box of kittens! Some one had "made a deposit" it seemed. oh, how I begged the tellers for help. I pleaded and begged, but I ended up with a box of kittens, anyway. A few years ago, on the first day of school, I found another box of kittens in the parking lot. Little children forgot, they didn't want to go back to school, that year. They gathered around the box and thought I was surely a fairy, instead of a violin teacher. Of course, I can stay right at the rabbit patch and find a kitten. It wasn't too long ago that the wild kitten, we named Moon Shine, found us. He lays now, in perfect bliss by the window fan as I write in the diary.

    When I was growing up, May was the month, children were allowed to go barefoot-and not a minute before. My grandmother laid down the law and Mama agreed. I thought it must be a sin and was probably in the Bible. When it was finally May, southern children celebrated this liberty with great enthusiasm. Someone always got stung that first day or the pony would step on their foot. Once my sister got an awful cut on a metal post. Going barefoot, was not for the faint of heart. By July, we only wore shoes to go to town and again every Sunday. I suppose, I am too civilized now, as I rarely go outside barefoot. I will ruin bedroom shoes, dependably wearing them to the garden or to the clothesline. Otherwise I am in garden shoes. Still, I remember that in May, I am allowed to go barefoot.

    Dearest Diary, I am glad for a rainy day to watch the irises grow. I am glad for the chance to write about the world in May, now and long ago. I am even glad for kittens in small hands presented like the rare treasures, they really are. . . I am glad for the pot that catches the rain and I am glad for the pot that simmers on the stove, too.