One day this week, while taking the dogs out for a little walk, I alerted to what sounded like big herds of deer running through the dry, brittle leaves in the woods surrounding our little nest of homes, studio and barns on the farm.
The sound rapidly crescendoed ... from a distant mono track to a booming digital high- definition surround sound!
Rather than a herd of deer, the cacophony originated from a herd of slow, heavy, fat raindrops stomping on a carpet of dry, brittle leaves.
I stood and watched, fascinated by the slow progress of the heavy curtain of rain at the top of the hill... at the point where the gravel private drive leaves the gravel public road.
As I watched, the dogs busied themselves researching the scents brought in by the warm, steady breeze that had been foreshadowing a weather change all day.
The rain scented the air with a distinctive fragrance as it approached. It was not the dusty dirt smell of a summer rain. This rain had a bit of a spicy scent... the whisper of fragrance one catches from a crushed leaf.
It seemed to take forever for those pregnant raindrops to reach the yard, a distance of something less than a quarter of a mile. The impact of water on dry fallen leaves was thunderous, but this was not a forceful rain that races along the ground, shoplifting valuable topsoil as it runs through the farm.
These were Investor Raindrops... laden with nutrients and restoring moisture with a business plan to soak deep into the soil and rebuild the heat-stressed trees and plants.
The brilliant native pear and apple trees (photo 2) we started planting about ten years back along Mayfield Road between Hamer Road and our driveway are living proof of previous investment rains like this.
(By the way, do these planted trees look random or natural to you? I don't think so, either. You would be surprised how often we have a large tree or two stolen. The several plant-thieves we have been able to catch in the act over the years have used the excuse that they just thought the trees, flowers or shrubbery were a natural part of the landscape, free for the taking.
(Don't get me started on the topic of who owns and pays taxes on the wildflowers or trees or shrubbery along the side of a road. All those past leaf- lifters had to do was stop and ask if we could share some plants. We've never yet refused to share the farm's bounty of flora!)
Photo 1 is what I see as I stand in the front yard of the family farmhouse, looking south toward the public road.
Photo 2, 3 and 4 are what you see as you approach our driveway. That is the public, county-maintained gravel road that you see in Photo 2 and 4!
Anyway, back to the Lessons from Leaves...
I stood under the pair of umbrella-like magnolia trees at the end of our walkway savoring the drama of that curtain of rain approaching. The dense display of prosperous green magnolia leaves makes a rather efficient umbrella if the rain is not too heavy.
Magnolia roots are very shallow... their evergreen leaves prevent rain from easily reaching the soil, so their roots have to hungrily grasp for nourishment.
There are parts of me that are like those magnolia trees. I'm so busy covering up and hiding the injured or scarred
parts of my heart behind a thick covering of camouflage that God's nourishment cannot nurture and restore those scarred areas.
The warm rain was greedily soaked up by the venerable old oak trees that still survive in the yard. You can see the almost- bare skeleton branches in photo 5. After a lifetime of giving, an oak eventually demands a great deal of nourishment that it is forced to suck out of the ground around it.
While an oak's broad branches provide decades of mentoring shade in the summer, acorns for wildlife, shelter and protection by its very strength (to name just a few of the oak's attributes), there is a natural season in life when those protective branches have drained all the nutrients from the surroundings, so they weaken, break and crash to the ground.
As Gordon and I age, especially as a childless couple, we must be alert to natural selfish tendencies that could drain, break or crush those people around us. We can choose to continue to give of ourselves and shelter and nurture others, regardless of our age.
The tulip poplar on the west side of the house (photo 7) is like a few people I know who put all their energy into climbing high into the sky, straining to be the first, the tallest, the showiest tree in the yard. Look at the leaves that have been sacrificed to the height and top layer of leaves. Lord, please prevent me from ever using people to further my personal agenda.
This tulip poplar could have nourished the leaves that helped it grow to such heights, but instead, it drops its leaves quickly, leaving barren branches beneath the brilliant golden crown visible only from above.
The tulip poplar misses out on the fulfilling glow of the sweeping branches of the pear tree on the east side of the yard that holds its leaves as long as possible (photos 5, 6, and 8).
One day soon, those golden pear leaves will all drop within a few days of each other. That particular pear tree produces a hearty bounty of delicious pears each year. Every third or fourth year, the branches are so heavy with fruit that we have to prop up the far-reaching branches with canes.
That pear tree is a team player, sharing nourishment with all of its branches and leaves and producing more fruit than our family can consume or preserve... so this one pear tree blesses other families as well.
There are lessons to be learned from hickory (photo 9) or maple (photo 10) or sweet gum, dogwood and beech (photo 4) and many other trees in this Fall FoliageStudy.
This chestnut is how I see myself (photo 11). This particular specimen grows in a profusion of trunks, each pursuing a particular colorful direction. It needs to be refocused or pruned to one trunk that will support large branches of creativity.
The sucker branches waste valuable food. The undergrowth is like life's chaos that must be cleared away so that it will also not drain energy from the main trunk. I am so like this chestnut tree!
Thankfully. the Lord is a patient gardener who has been steadily pruning in our lives, before and after Gordon and I married. We want the strength and dependability of the stalwart oak, the generosity of the pear, and the creative beauty of all of these brilliant fall performers.
And that slow-moving rain? This year has been a season of seemingly endless challenges that have left us exhausted and parched for God's rain.
As I stood and watched the rain slowly approach this week, I thought about the long challenging year, and it seemed as if Gordon and I are thirstily waiting for God's rain of rest and renewal.
I can faintly hear and smell God's restorative rain approaching in our life. It will be His Investment Rain... blessings that will reach us when the time is precisely right and not a moment early.
God's nourishment will be as warm and sweet- smelling as that rain this week on our farm in Mississippi.
Until that time, Gordon and I must actively look for and appreciate the blessings already in our lives. We have to help each other focus on on the wealth of natural beauty everywhere around us.
This is the only way we know to let God help us control the normal emotions of discouragement, anxiety and impatience that would otherwise become overwhelming while one waits on The Lord. This is a particularly difficult area for me.
At the moment, four of the little white four- legged blessings are snoring on the bed around me. *happy smile*
(Tongue in cheek) Feeling extra special recently. I'm guilded! 
So when one joins a guild, does that mean the new member is covered in gold leaf, i.e., guilded?
Sorry...couldn't help myself...feeling a bit silly tonight. It has been a s-t-r-a-n-g-e day! The kiln is warming up the porcelain pieces I finished tonight, getting ready to launch into a long fire at 2400 degrees Fahrenheit.
The kid in this top picture is just how I feel anytime I get around quilters! The little tyke was the youngest person at the Golden Triangle Quilters Guild meeting in Starkville last week. 
Others of us brought books, as requested, for show-and- tell. Those are the books I took (in the first picture), all books I have shared with you previously. 
And what a lovely place for the Golden Triangle Quilters to meet...the First United Methodist Church in Starkville. 
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