April Days

Rain, rain go away — the familiar children’s rhyme runs through the mind this month. April showers? More like deluge with nearly five inches of rain dumped on the Island by Wednesday this week in a record storm that washed out roads and sent highway and emergency workers scrambling. Suddenly winter coats have been replaced by slickers and tall rubber boots, the better for fording puddles the size of small lakes on downtown streets and in driveways.

And just as suddenly the gray winter landscape of March has disappeared. The color scheme is now green, yellow and blue with reborn lawns and farm fields, clumps of daffodils bursting into bloom, forsythia ready to turn with the next warm, sunny day and exquisite Prussian blue carpets of Siberian squill in dooryards across the Island. Next up: lilacs, lily of the valley and late narcissus. After the rain goes away.