Although our televisions and radios blared out our plight locally, it hardly mattered. There are few farmers left among the suburban sprawl. The prices at our supermarkets were not much affected, because most of what feeds us is grown elsewhere, in the Corn Belt of the Midwest, or the fruit orchards of California and Florida. Despite the media's focus, there was little that non-farmers could justly bemoan.

The grass stopped growing on suburban lawns. The young man who usually cuts my lawn for me had to make his living painting houses. A local ordinance forbade watering lawns and washing cars, an inconvenience to my neighbours. Our local television news anchors pleaded with us to not take baths and to keep our showers short.

Sadly, because of the drought there were no fireflies this year. My wife and I, being of a romantic bent, annually visit a secret place we've named Lightning Bug Bog, where the fireflies in a July night of former years entertained us with their slow-motion fireworks to the musical accompaniment of frogs. This year, no fireworks. On the other hand, there have been practically no mosquitoes either, and my dog Boris has been spared the usual annoying ticks or fleas.

On the fifteenth of August, whatever devils or dragons had been holding back the rain, could not retain it any longer. Kept back for months, all the waiting rain at last broke loose.

It was just after midnight and I had just arrived home from work, had just pulled up the driveway, had just climbed out of my car, and I could hear the drumming clatter of an approaching downpour. Boris was chained and had stood, despite his arthritis, to greet me. While I was unchaining him, so he could come in with me, the wall of rain came up the driveway and began a tinny tattooing on our parked cars. The rain dashed across the brick patio, and while I yet stood under the eaves, pushing the fat rump of my 180 pound Newfoundland dog through the front door, the rain, splashing the patio, began to soak my pants legs.

There was little wind. The heavy rain fell straight like a beaded curtain. There was grand lightning and tremendous thunder that scared Jazzbender the cat to seek some dark, quiet place of the house that is even a secret from me. Boris was unaffected, sleeping on the cool tile floor of my bathroom.

While my wife, Ms Keogh, sat at my desk in the study, making out checks for the bills and bringing our ledger up-to-date, the lights began to flicker, then blink. I was sitting on the lounge chair in the same room, reading. Unsurprisingly, the lights went out and stayed out. Since we were wide awake, and since the house was pitch dark so that we could no longer continue doing what we had been doing, Ms Keogh and I went for a drive. It was two o'clock in the morning.

The rich vocabulary of weather exercises our minds and moods, keeping the experience of existence varied. It continually surprises me how folks worry and whine about the weather, which I can only regard enthusiastically. We enjoy driving in bad weather, touring a hostile world in mobile comfort. It is the same wonder the scientist has aboard a submarine exploring the ocean floor. We sought the narrow lanes of the country.

My headlights poked out a narrow realm, shortened by the reflective sheets of rain, our view of the world limited to the constrained beams. The streets had been converted into rivulets. Rain pounding into the already flooded roadway caused a bright froth in my headlights.

The sky grumbled and exploded. Into the night were inserted flashes that, for a brief instant, would expand our world, slapping on to our retinas distant horizons beneath tumbling clouds, more remembered than seen, a vision imposed on our consciousness. Or when the rain was at its densest, we found ourselves beneath a cataract.

Often spray shot out from under the wheels, arcing higher than the roof to either side. It looked as if we were launching rockets from wings. At one shallow point in the roadway, a stream flowed across the macadam. I saw it too late. It slowed the car almost to a stop, as I thumped the accelerator and punched our way through, the car, half the time floating, drifting slightly sideways.

We returned home to find the electricity had been restored to all the surrounding neighbourhood, except for our block and a few adjacent streets. We reinstalled ourselves in the study. Ms Keogh took to the lounge chair and read a mystery by the beam of a flashlight balanced on her shoulder. I sat at my desk and composed a couple of letters, using a penlight held in my mouth. The penlight grew surprisingly warm. Later, it was by flashlight that I took my bath. No electricity meant no oil burner, which meant no new hot water. Still, it was such a warm night, that enough hot water remained in the tank and pipes to suit.

It was eventful, another adventure for Ms Keogh and me to share. And the rain gave a boost to nature. The following day I found several new shoots, each a foot high, sprouting from a poplar stump. A tangle of new ivy made its appearance against the side of the house, born from the older vines I thought I had decimated. And the insect world came to life. Even now, through the opened window, I can hear a chorus of crickets singing while I write.