out here in the swamp

It has been raining yet again as always here in Houston. The weather man politely calls it heavy showers. If I were in Georgia, I would have referred to the rain last night as being as heavy as a cow pissing on a flat river rock. Around here they call it a frog choker rain and justifyably so. At times last night it was raining so hard that I could not see the grass in the yard, a mere 8 feet from the door. The rain on the skylights in the bathroom sounded like a herd of horses on the roof. When I opened the blinds this am to appraise the situation I discovered that we are apparently on the fly way for migrating grackles, starlings and jackdaws along with random sparrows and morning doves. The swamp formerly known as the grassy back yard was black with chittering bathing birds. There were also small white cattle egrets and lesser ibis and one small gray heron who had staked out the choicer puddles and were gravely probing the mud puddles for whatever it is that they eat. Eventually the grackles, starlings, jackdaws and sparrow flew off to post on the telephone wires and trees and generally pretend to be the birds from Hitcock's movie "The Birds " while the mourning doves, ibis and egrets remained with the heron who was eyeing the house in a rather jaundiced manner and daring the dog to come anywhere near his puddle. If it suddenly starts raining frogs and toads then I'll know the end is near. In the meantime, the sun is out, the temperature is headed for the 90s taking the humidity along with it. Bah Humbug, this is not proper November weather.