It’s really raining hard. It’s like a monsoon around here. Our few days of nice weather made us a bit complacent. I could not, the day before yesterday, imagine that the sun would cease to shine. I was basking in perfect 70 plus degree weather. So were all the animals. The goats, in particular, were screaming to be let of their pen. They’re now hanging out in their shelter, and being uncharacteristically quiet.

It’s a good day for doing inside work. Unthinkable, to ride in downpour like this. I don’t mind being inside – I just worry that this is a harbinger of climate change. It also makes me wonder about winter – we might get so much snow that we can’t keep up with moving it. Last winter we

Signy and Hrimmi looking out at the rain

reached our limit. And there was the wind, which blew the snow around. It was so bad that the drifts were like concrete.

A short while I ago, when the rain started picking up, I went down to the horse pen, thinking that I should move Hrimmi and Signy into their foal stall, this because the shelter in the large pen best holds two horses. I figured that I’d find Raudi and Siggi lording it in the shelter pen, and Signy and Hrimmi standing outside of it. Signy was out in the rain. But amazingly, Raudi had made room for Hrimmi. The two were actually standing companionably, side-by-side. This was a pleasant surprise, for Raudi usually only thinks of Raudi.

I did move Signy and Hrimmi into their own shelter. As I did this, I remained deep in thought. Raudi’s making space for Hrimmi may have been nothing more than a mere instinctual gesture. But something can be learned from this, and that’s (whenever possible) to practice random acts of kindness. This is now a clichéd phrase that I often see on bumper stickers and tee-shirts. In fact, it’s so clichéd that I now don’t pay it much mind.

But maybe we should all just go out of our way to do one nice thing a day for someone else. I’m not talking instinctive gestures, like unthinkingly moving out of the way of a passing pedestrian; rather, I’m talking about thinkingly moving out of the way for a passing pedestrian. If we all did this . . .

Little things add up. Just pick up a handful of sand on the beach. In your hand at any one moment are a trillion grains, more than that of the national debt. This is a reminder that yes, small things do matter.

Next: 238. 08/3/12: Odds n Ends