“Go up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of the rushing rain.”
— I Kings 18:41b
Green circles created by circular sprinklers leave the front yard looking like alien spaceships landed. I told a friend deer have come closer to the house than ever before and they were eating the vegetation, pulling flowers from pots; even eating the palm tree fronds and nipping the pineapple plant.
“Perhaps” she said, “it’s the watering.”
We are in an unprecedented drought, and I wondered about the deer and other animals. If they haven’t been able to eat enough in the past months, what will they do for winter?
I questioned Sam who said, “Yellow acorns.”
To my quizzical look he replied, “Corn. We will feed them corn.”
Year-to-date rainfall deficit is about 12-plus inches down from a surplus in July. Ponds are desperately low. I saw a farmer’s field in which the cattle ponds had dried up. His neighbor had community water and gave him permission to fill his watering troughs with a hose.
I’ve heard tell of cows getting stuck in earth cracks and calves weighed down in mudflats.
Our own lake is so low the water has left the cabin and barely reaches the dock. Where the water does reach the dock, it is so shallow the fish can’t get close, making it difficult to sling the fish food far enough out to reach them. The dorsal fin of the carp is visible far above the water level.
When the sprinklers are on birds of all kinds flit through the spraying water. Neighbor Robin commented, “It looks like the U.N. of birds.”
Our paved roadways are noticeably buckling. Passersby kick up such dust from the gravel road it hangs in the air for hours.
The drought has caused trouble not just for wildlife and habitat but for our own dwellings. Foundations are shifting and cracking and pulling on walls and windows. I know of cases where a sliding glass door shattered and another the addition to the house pulled away from the main structure and broke windows.
The west side of our garage is sinking so Sam’s removed dirt, added more concrete as a base and has jacks pushing up the foundation. We’re living on shaky ground in a dry and thirsty land.
Sam watches the weather daily as do many of our Prairie neighbors. The reports come back, “The rain is north of us” or, “The rain is south of us and moving east.”
I was reminded of the story of Elijah: “And after a while the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.” So, Elijah and his servant went to Mount Carmel and prayed for rain; he did so seven times and, “Behold, a little cloud like a man’s hand is rising from the sea … and in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain.”
Oh, for a little cloud the size of a man’s hand.
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