Got rain?
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
On Sunday, it rained in Ramona. This rain was indeed noteworthy! What has it been? Two months since it rained? I do recall that during the haying season, we were praying "Please, no rain," but once the wheat was all in, we switched our plea, "Did we say no rain? Well, now we'd like a little."
In California, the Almighty doesn't have to worry about prayer requests for "rain" or "no rain" all summer long. There are probably just too many people with counter requests so the rhythm of nature in the Napa Valley is set to "no rain" from May to September. Every day is filled with consistent sunshine. We know that if you want rain in the summer, you've got to turn on the sprinkler system and make your own.
This summer, as things got dry in my Kansas yard, I started watering. It's one thing to be hot yourself, but it's quite another for the gardener to look out and see their tomatoes thirsty. "You've been squirting again," says our buddy Tim, "You're spoiling them things," he warns. But I can't stand for them to be all droopy.
"How do you take watching your crops dry up?" I ask my neighbor Erich. "Oh, we've been through this lots of times before," he chuckles at my concern. "This is nothing," he tells me with a shake of his head, "Why in 1936 — now that was the granddaddy of them all." And then he tells me how many days the weather was in the "triple digits" all in a row, setting a Kansas state record and that there was no rain, period, until September when it was too late for any crops to be saved.
Every morning during my 2002 mini-drought, I gave thanks for our well and when the pump went kapoot, I switched my allegiance and spirit of thanksgiving to Rural Water. I remember the stories about Grandma getting up early in the morning to carry water to her garden from the pump — every ounce of water pulled up out of the earth in order to replenish the earth. Something was missing in this cycle — rain!
Through these hot days of a summer my flowers have survived, but they haven't flourished — the same with the milo and the corn in the fields near town. Instead of reaching towards my shoulders, the zinnias at Jake's Place are down around my knees and blooming fast as if to say, "Quick! Bloom and make seed for the next year because we don't know how long we'll be alive!"
Several times we thought that rain was coming this summer and watched the sky and the clouds with great expectations; but nothing happened. We had wind, sometimes thunder and even a little lightning in the area — no rain!
In the midst of all this dryness and heat, I took to even watering the lawn in front of the house. After all, the little strip of land where the flowers lived was instantly sucked dry. How could anything survive? The terra firma outside my little band of green has cracks in it so large one could lose a small tool to the depths. As the cracks in the ground widened, I wondered if I should just drop something into their gaping mouths — as if to appease the underground gods. If nothing else it could tell some distant posterity about our way of life. "Let them try and figure out how a screw driver got down there," I chuckled to myself like a mad scientist. This is what happens when it gets too hot in Kansas and there's no rain.
And then it rained on Sunday! We were sitting on the porch, shooing the flies — hot — when the wind came up. "What is this shift in the weather?" I asked no one in particular. "Was there a forecast for rain?" And the answer came in the wind as big drops of water catapulted to the thirsty ground. "Did we leave the car windows open?"
It's another day in the country and we got rain! This was so delicious that I didn't run to close the window — I sauntered, raising my arms to the heavens in thanksgiving for the rain coming down. This was like standing in the shower — the water was warm. By the time I got back to the house, I was deliciously drenched and stood at the edge of the porch and let the run-off from the roof just pour over my head. Praise be!
