Watered to Our Roots

27 days since our last rain...27 days of higher daily high's than usual for us. Now, here we are, arms open to our second bout of showers to soothe the droughty soil. Why do we ever meddle with the will of the sky? Why do we ever wish away rain, in denial of the imperfection of spring conditions? It's easy to forget that the flipside of the coin scares us just as much...flood-like conditions in these fields that were once inhabited by swampland...and still have that water-holding capacity. I vow to graciously accept those springs that fall somewhere in between, and to work with what we are given in more extreme springs such as this. We are wed to this land and for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, and whether sick from drought or in the good health of a lush, mild spring, we have taken each other.
A bigger question that tempts me toward cynicism: why do the powers that be fail to use all of that power to mitigate the distress we cause to our earth, and our resource pool? I've been following the story of the Colorado River crisis so closely, so sad to hear the ideas being tossed around: piping water in from the Great Lakes looking likely. Once one water source is abused and mishandled and run dry, it looks like the next thought is to open the next tap full blast, to water crops in a region where life demands so much of it to thrive. Ultimately, after checking in on the latest thing I can not change, I refuse to relent to the darkened, hardened cynical side of life, and refocus my energy on this little 27 acres here...and the impact we have beyond it.
The ground here shivered with the ecstasy of deep watering on Sunday, while our bodies fully relaxed for the first time in weeks in the refuge of the farmhouse, water dripping down its windows. I think even the house enjoyed the shower. The home gardens danced in the rainfall, the nasturtium canopy growing in leaps and bounds overnight due to the magical distribution of nitrates that is delivered by the electrical exchange of a thunderstorm. I couldn't help but visit the field during a break in the storm. Rows and rows of crops deeply green, brilliant orange squash blossoms laced throughout the summer squash, sweetly flowering for us despite only being kept alive by our desperate irrigation...now repaid in full by an incredible soak. And our very giving well replenished and relieved for now.
The key to this life on the land is to adapt and react to its needs and its whims. One day before the end of my time, we may grow out of the climatic zone necessary for sugar maples to run, and to be tapped for boiling down to the one and only syrup. We may find ourselves in a zone which instead grows figs in abundance, or other warm-loving lovelies. Time will tell, and the land will tell us what it is willing to bear. Time will also tell if we earthlings can band together to preserve what we have and to show better thanks to this Earth which gives us all we need and still spins madly on, proving itself to be capable of regeneration and renewal.