It was 6:30am, and strangely darker than I thought it should be.

I’m always the first one up on the weekends, and kept that tradition going this morning as I made my customary pre-dawn walk through the living room to the bathroom (no lights on, but no tripping or stubbing of toes either. I consider this one of my superpowers). I mentioned this strange darker-than-it-ought-to-be observation out loud to one of the cats (couldn’t tell which one because it was dark and I didn’t reach out to touch her fur—that’s how I tell them all apart), who made no comment as I pulled my gaze away from the east-facing bathroom window and picked my way back through the unusually dark living room and into bed. A couple of short dreams later, I opened my eyes to a square of gray light framed by the window and guessed the time to be around 7:15. Checking the clock, I was only off by twelve minutes. Not bad.

The skies were a turbulent mix of dark gray clouds with random cottony tufts of white, all moving at a terrific speed as if being pursued by something dangerous. I love watching such drama in the 360-degree amphitheater that surrounds our house; from each window, there was a different weather vignette unfolding into the one next to it. The living room windows face the west, the kitchen has three views to the south, west and north, and the first floor guest room has west and south-facing windows with views of the mulberry saplings and old old goat barn respectively. The bathroom’s only window looks east across the field, as do the windows in the mudroom. Following the path of a storm from inside the house is fantastic exercise, dashing from one side of the house to the other, and we haven’t even talked about the upstairs vantage points (all we’re missing there is a window with a view to the north). Sorry—way too much detail about the layout of our house, but it’s an important context for a good many stories. Well, we think so anyway.

I was putting away a stack of clean towels in the bathroom when the sun pushed its way through a bank of thick clouds, it’s light reflecting off the mirrors of the medicine cabinet. A light rain had been falling and quickly became a downpour. Rainbow, I thought, as I raced out the bathroom door into the living room. And there it was in the west, a sunrise band of colors against that backdrop of slate-colored skies. I crossed my arms and rested them on the window frame, whispering “a morning rainbow…in the west!” as its colors faded and returned and arced across the meadow. Most of the rainbows we’ve seen here have been in the east, near the end of the day as the storm made its way out of town. To wake up to one is a rare and remarkable thing indeed. I took it for the gift that it was, and moved forward with the next tasks on my unwritten to-do list—granola, more laundry, reorganizing the leftovers in the fridge.

Patrick woke up a couple hours later and I suggested we go for a walk out to the woods. Our burgeoning granola business has kept us inside more than outside these past several weeks, and I felt achingly guilty for not walking the paths as late summer yielded to the chilly air of autumn. Strong wind gusts a few nights ago would surely have changed the landscape; we were both curious about which trees had fallen and where.

As we walked the path parallel to our eight acres of woods at the northern-most edge of our property, I noticed someone had set up a deer blind in one of the black walnut trees just a few yards in from where we were walking. They did some pretty deep trespassing to strap the contraption tightly around the trunk, and even though we hadn’t been out this way in a while, it looked newly-installed; gun season starts this week. We understand the hunting culture in these parts, and have had both pleasant and tense encounters with those who saw our land as theirs to roam. We appreciate the ones who practice proper etiquette: request our permission and, when granted, leave nothing but their footprints behind. We struggle with anyone who doesn’t ask first.

We needed to run a few errands, so we walked back to the house, changed up our clothes slightly (walking clothes on a Sunday are not quite suitable for going into town. Yep, even where we live) and headed north to pick up a prescription, buy some birdseed and, now, some new “No Hunting/No Trespassing” signs. The skies continued their shifting sunny-to-stormy demeanor, until suddenly but gently, the second rainbow of the day ribboned across the two-lane road, the clouds covering parts of the arc here and there. I was driving this time, so Patrick had the rare treat of gazing about, drinking in the scenery with more than a quick glance. The west end of the rainbow was huge and bright. We were both convinced we’d be parking beneath it in just a couple of miles, it was that solid.

An hour later, as we walked out of the store with birdseed, suet and signage, a third rainbow planted itself firmly, both ends visible, over the Wal-Mart across the street (the weekend after Black Friday, that might just be some kind of sign from the retail fairies). The woman walking out next to us stopped to take a picture, and other fellow customers exiting the store ooohed and ahhhed along with the rest of us. Made me think of how many times I’ve had the privilege of experiencing rainbow sightings with others. Not many. It was cool.

Patrick and I shared a latte on the way home, and couldn’t remember a three-rainbow day since we’ve lived here (Dear diary…). We also spent a little time wondering uneasily who was in our woods and what they were thinking.

Before the sun slipped down past the Hill to the west, the deer blind was no longer strapped to that tree.

I’ll leave you to your own conclusions.