Rain, rain don't go away.....

We finally have some rain.  It's been a while and although we have had beautiful sunny, unseasonably warm weather for November, I  welcome the rain at any time. Not to say I don't get tired of constant rain, but it takes a while.
When my kids were young, and I was a stay-at-home Mom (I always capitalize the word 'Mom' because it's one of the highest and most hard won titles in the world and deserves all the respect it can muster) we made the most of rainy days. We played games, made bread, visited Nana.  It was fun to get dressed in our rain coats and rubber boots and go on the bus to the bowling alley, or downtown shopping, stopping for lunch or likely just a more affordable Coke while we were out at the Peacock Restaurant, now long gone. Other times we just went for a walk to watch the worms wriggle across the sidewalk.  I can still remember the damp, dewy, wormy smell of those excursions.
It's not even raining hard enough today to make a noise on the roof, but I can hear the birds outside and their calls are different in the rain. 
The crows are either happy or not all amused.  I'm not sure because I don't speak crow.....yet.   Such a racket they make in the trees behind the house. No wonder a gathering of crows is called a 'murder'.  It sure invokes the inclination, although in some ways I welcome the sound.  So much life out there.
When I open the window I can hear the tiny metallic peep of the finches on the fence and the chipping sparrows getting in their two cents worth.  The chickadees love the lilac bush that hangs over the deck and  I could listen to and watch them forever.  I love to watch them dart  back and forth from the feeder. They're so bossy in spite of their size.  They make me think of camping in Algonquin Park.  The cardinals are the capos out there, though.  The noisiest,  brightest, most defiant, and the biggest defenders of the territory: although once in a while they will allow a sparrow to eat on the other side of  the feeder.  I wonder if they demand something in return.  
Thankfully,  for once, the squirrels have stopped their constant squawking.  The big grey guy sits on the fence under the overhang of the roof.  Morose. Petulant.  Sulking, I think.  He doesn't like to get his beautiful coat wet.  Poor baby. I guess I don't blame him,  but I wish he would find another place to shelter or stop pooping right outside my kitchen window.  The little black ones are in the tree, not moving, hunched over, looking like sodden scalped lumps of fur left behind by some squirrel massacre.  Not road kill, but maybe tree kill. Rain kill?
Our red oak tree keeps it's papery brown leaves til Spring, when the new growth pushes them off to make way for more seasonable livery, but the neighbour's red oak tree makes up for it, and the front lawn is covered in leaves....again.  
Believe it or not, there are still a few, very few, robins about, and they are poking through the leaves like housewives at a sale table, trying to find enough to sustain them for another day.  I want to grab one of them and shout 'go south, you fool' into his little ear, but if he didn't die of a heart attack, he'd likely bite me. I don't speak robin....not yet.... and who needs even one more enemy at this time of life? 
I think I'll just sit inside, and watch the birds, read my book, enjoy my tea or more likely a glass of wine, and remember the smell of baking bread, kids laughter, stinky rubber boots, wormy walks and visiting Mom.