Drive offered peek at nature's beauty

It was a brief respite but last Sunday’s rainstorm provided us with hope during a long dry winter.

The evidence of that hope was everywhere as the wife and I rose before daylight Monday for a trip to Lubbock. The night before the rare February thunderstorm had left us eating our supper by candlelight after the lights went out for nearly an hour.

As we left the house a glowing full moon hung low in the clear western sky. Out on Cacahuate Road, with the full moon behind us and dawn coming in the eastern sky, a decaying building showed the ribs of its roofless rafters. A short distance further the ribs of a home under construction will provide for a new generation in the sandhills.

Night birds swooped across our highway path taking advantage of the final hour of darkness to find the day’s meal.

I noticed a home with lights on and two vehicles warming up. A rural family getting ready to meet the day, either in town or at a nearby dairy. Just down the road their neighbor was already out checking his cattle, pickup idling through the pasture with the headlights off no doubt to preserve night vision so he could find his bovine charges.

As the sun began to rise, standing water was noticeable in the fields