The Farmer Who Was Afraid of the Rain

There once was a farmer who was afraid of the rain. She knew enough of the implication of water to be intimadated, but not enough to rest assured that all is not lost. Amidst a forecast of endless rain, but no indication of how much, she cowered and she hoped the sky would relent. During the first wave of heavy showers, she remembered the Memorial Day tornadoes from years ago, when she saw a tornado touch down on the property next door, and the meaningless boundary line which it could tear across depending on its whims. That evening, her neighbor had taken video footage of the tornado in which you could hear him shouting,"Lift! Lift!". The tornado didn't lift, but tore southward away from us and toward the school. That sort of pleading is utterly hominal. While the rest of the animal kingdom flees a storm to seek shelter, we humans negotiate with the sky.

I'm the farmer from the story. And I'm the one who in the first wave of rain last week watched the black sky in the west closing in on the farm all too quickly and sent her invocation out into the expanse. "May we all see this storm through without too much suffering". I sent my love to the field which we have tended to and which holds so much potential harvest in its soils and in a canopy of green above. And I sent my love to the sky which has made it possible. Rich and I pulled anything that was near ready to be harvested from the ground and battoned down the hatches. I closed the shades, got my coziest pair of sweatpants on and readied a stack of board games to play with May and Jack, knowing they'd be back to school in a week. We played, then I went through every piece of clothing in the house. Some were set aside for donation, others folded and tucked into dresser drawers. I labeled Jack's school supplies with his name, down to the last Crayola crayon, and turned up the volume on our speakers as we rotated through our vinyl collection. Inches of rain fell in the meantime, and I practiced what those who are more enlightened than me preach about accepting what you can not change.

The lights flickered and the dogs sat at attention while the thunder clapped. At some point Jack joked that we might need a boat to get to deliveries the next day. If only I could have his lightness of heart. I masked the stress I was feeling for the kids' sake. The weight of the farm's well being is not theirs to bear. Rich took the opportunity to be inside and baked bread. I could feel the tension slacken as the scent of the maillard reaction in the oven wafted through the farmhouse. My body fully relaxed when he broke the rules and sliced into it as it was still steaming and we indulged together. Maybe man and woman can survive on bread alone. We hardly farmed that day, but our bodies felt more beat up than they do after a long field day. Adrenaline dumps seem to demand more than field cultivation.

We kissed each other good night that night and decided that we were the lucky ones who maintained power, safety, and had dodged tornadoes. Over the next twenty-four hours, like the stormy sea, torrential waves crashed over the farm. Each time one would blow in, I'd think of our neighbor and attempt to converse with the sky, willing it to lighten the load or abate and give the ground a chance to process what it had been pummeled with. We decided it was futile to check the rain gauge as the storm was ongoing, but by the end of it found that we had just shy of five inches.

All we can do is react. There is nothing to be done during the storm. But when play resumes, it's time to make decisions. Firstly, we email our restaurant partners to let them know of shortages...a task I so irregularly have to undertake, as we only offer what we are sure we can deliver on. Secondly, we order more seed to plug into the ground as soon as we can get back in the field, anticipating that the young fall planting could likely succumb, starving for oxygen in the saturated soil. And then, we get out into the excessively humid environment, green as spring, unbeknownst to us in August, when the grasses typically and reliably relent and dry out in the hot summer weather. No doubt it's green. We are officially twenty inches beyond our average rainfall for mid-August. So we slog through the field, boots heavy with mud, to collect what fruits have ripened in the last few days, and to assess the damage.

The kicker is that it's hard to move on from such a rainfall. It hangs over your head as you wait to see what will pull through. And in this case, the rain just kept coming. It was a punishing series of storms, which seemed like it might not leave the field with a chance. The more rain that fell on the saturated field, the longer it would take for oxygen to penetrate the soil and reach the plant roots to catalyze cellular respiration...responsible for growth, repair, and nutrient intake. I could hardly look at the epic field of brassicas we were proud to have planted and whose body language looked dire for multiple days.

The thing is, a week after the rains started, one last incredible rainfall which hit the Dayton area while it was down and made national news for its picteresque flooding, it missed us. We got half an inch to the four inches our neighbor fifteen minutes down the road got. And the drier conditions that have been dished out by that grand Mother Nature, they came seemingly in the nick of time. And those brassicas: the broccoli, cabbage, kale, and cauliflower, most of them stood up tall and met the sun at its return. We lost half of a planting of salad mix, highly sought after during this cyclosporitic time, but those wee carrots look to be alive.

A praying mantis slowly scaled the pepper plant I began to harvest generous fruits from and I thought,"back to business". She was back to it in pursuit of the pesky insects who come for our plants, and I was reaping the benefits. During the past week, the world seemed like it was spinning backward. How is it that we are breaking weather patterns and records increasingly and we have degraded meteorology? It's insensible to cut the budget of the National Weather Service during a time when we are experiencing an increased frequency of damaging and dangerous weather conditions. Perhaps there are better ways to balance the budget. But this is another hominal trait. Finding someone to blame and blowing off steam. It is time to channel Jack's lightness of heart and practice accepting what is. Cynicism is unwelcome here.

I realized how little I had laughed in the past week, worrying about this season and those to come. What for? How unproductive. At some point I got into a laughing fit with Rich and realized that I hadn't been taking my favorite medicine for nearly a week. How unhealthy of me. That night I decided to trampoline with the kids and got a double dose as May and I "popcorned" Jack nearly as high as the safety fencing that's meant to hold us in. Belly laughs ensued. While hardship exists, joy does too. All the while.

And then there's working with the natural world. It's utterly hopeful. Despite these extreme events, plants want to grow, and they rise to the occasion. At least the survivors do. As the seasons wear on, I will accept that we win some and we lose some. That is the nature of what we do. The sun will come out, whether it's tomorrow or the next day and we will find there is something to show for our efforts. And when market day rolls around, someone is complimenting what they see as an impressive harvest. I will become more weathered, thicker skinned, and take a note from the natural world to carry on. I can only aspire to stand to meet the sun as gloriously as the brassicas did after the storm.

Thank you for reading

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