Rain, rain, precious rain.

Rain, rain, precious rain. 

We finally received the second soaking rain after a three year drought.  This wild and hardy adopted home of mine never fails to amaze me with its resilience.  All summer, it was dry and barren.  Pecan trees began dying off in the unrelenting heat, and the field grasses disappeared.

Then the first winter’s rain, the land sort of woke, and the wildflowers were the first to push up greenery to feed their dormant roots.  They’ll not bloom ‘til spring, but will use the moisture to push their taproots even deeper into the rocky soil.

Then the second rain, two weeks later, and the rye grasses send up straight blade, giving the land a verdant lushness.  The native buffalo and saw grasses send up tall spikes, the hidden bermudagrasses send up more delicate fern like seed heads, and the land sets about restoring itself.

I had given up on lawn watering, calculating it cost me around $40 each time I watered.  Even the marigolds suffered as I cut back to watering them once a week. 

The curse is mowing.  I had left the rusty blades on the mower dull from last spring, so it is bludgeoning the grass down instead of cutting it.  The tough buffalo grass merely bends to the assault on it.

So … down to the store for new mower blades, put the mower on the lift, get out the breaker bar and a 9/16” socket, and change out the blades, then back to the wild verges.  It takes about five hours to mow my little corner of paradise.  Add mower maintenance to it, and a full day of loafing is forever lost.

We are wrapping up the High Holy Days.  It is the second day of Succote, or the feast of booths.  I built a succah outside of the synagogue as sort of a community outreach.  We are in Baptist country here, and they look at us with squinty-eyed suspicion, but they are very kind folk, and feel as long as we aint a’carrying off their daughters, they’ll leave us well enuff alone.  So we gently try to remind them that the roots of their religion is grounded in Judaism, and that we indeed a part of their family, even if we do wear funny hats.

So anyhoo.  Good mornin’.  I must be off about the chores of a gentleman farmer.  They be few, but important.

~r