Rain in the Mountains

Gustave Baumann

The following quote is from one of Baumann's handwritten manuscripts:

With all the wide expanse of horizon to observe them in, rains here take on a new meaning. They are not just an occasion to remember a forgotten umbrella or galoshes. A steady gentle downpour of benefit to the land may turn into a cloudburst carrying fertile fields into raging arrroyos. The Indians in their language distinguish the two as female and male rain. Another kind I've frequently seen in the Taos Valley they call “walking rain.“ In thin streamers it descends from the clouds like long curtains. Varying winds may blow these curtains in different directions before they reach the ground or they may vanish somewhere in the clean hot sunshine to rise and try again.