While we were doing this, my mom called from a nearby town to ask, "Is it raining? It's POURING here!" No, I told her. No rain here. It looked like it was going to pass us by - but wait! A few drops!
It did rain. A tenth of an inch.
No doubt sitting on the front porch does no good. But when those few drops start, and you can see the rain moving toward you, and you can smell it wetting the dirt - it's a wonderful feeling of both relief and joy.
I'm reading the boys Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy. We just read the chapter where it froze on July 3 and they had to go out in the middle of the night and pour water on all the corn plants before the sun rose, since the sun on the frozen corn plants would kill them. They poured water on three acres of corn, and lost a quarter of an acre.
I liked this book when I was little, but I find it far more interesting now. We buy crop insurance every year, so if we have a bad corn crop, we're not going to be completely devastated.
The days before crop insurance must have been especially terrifying. I'm sure you'd do anything to keep them alive - maybe we'd be out there manually giving each plant a drink. Definitely, I'd be far too anxious to sit still on a porch swing.
1 comment:
We LOVE that book! I remember reading it to Gavin when he was little and your post just reminded me that Merritt would probably really enjoy it now, too. Today I was driving by a local elementary school and their saying of the week was 'Make hay while the sun shines'. I smiled and thought of you!
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