Thoughts on Praying for Rain

Common sight around River City

THEY say rain is on the way. Ever wonder what folks in River City, your neighbors and mine, are doing behind all the Pray for Rain yard signs? Me, too. Walk with me ….

I’m sitting on some 100 gallons of collected rainwater, and that’s not saying much for a roof the size of ours. We could easily harvest five, six times that in one little thunder shower, given the storage capacity to handle it. Getting by on Social Security and two part-time pay checks, my catchment system is eight or ten 5-gal. cat litter tubs.

Where would we be without crazy cat ladies, praise the Lord.

[Crazy cat lady Annie waves]

Main storage is two 32-gal. “trash” cans, and I could use a couple more.

Don't get me wrong; I've nothing at all against prayer. But I was taught and brought up to ask the Good Lord's blessing, then knuckle down and do the work.

Western Wall and Rain Garden in progress

Excavation over here along the western fence is to remove hardpan clay for a rain garden catchment basin. What I take out of here is crushed and used as fill dirt for a small yet persistent sink hole over in the southeast corner. The clay stays on site in various other applications, as well, and is remixed into building soil.

Granddad Saunders was a Primitive Baptist deacon, as was his daddy, John, before him. His faith taught him to go to the Father and let his needs be known him. Then, get up off your knees, roll up your sleeves and deal with the situation at hand as best you can.

However, W.P. would have been the last man on Earth to put a sign in his yard about it.

"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet,

and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret;

and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

Matthew 6:6 KJV

Western Patch Going to Pot

Phase One of a recycled patch along the West fence.

What started out as a "rain garden" (above) is proceeding as a "pot" plot. Cinder blocks at the base have been loaded with Morning Glory seeds. This will be the final resting place for Cordie's Cauldron, the cast iron pot that has been with us since the Wilson administration.

"I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me."

Annie Miller            

The red wings are angry and storming the old bird feeder out by that stinky white tree. I swan, that tree wants to be a magnolia, but it's not. Turned off bright and chilly this early a.m.--about 33F, according to Bryan Rupp down at the TV3--so I held off on stocking the feeders. Just let 'em glean what they may from yesterday's leftovers. The blackbirds and doves are working it, but they're not all happy about it, and riots will beak out.

Bryan also mentioned a swarm of earthquakes these past three months running from Oklahoma City to the Kansas state line. The largest, so far, was about an R4 last Friday and centered near OKC. Bryan said these miniquakes have been building in frequency and intensity. Any guess as to what the FRACK is going down under Oklahoma?

It's gonna be a bitchin' seminar!

Just now, as I type, heard from Stacy and Jan down in Austin this weekend. Here's Stacy.

"I'm in Austin learning tons of new stuff to come back and put to good use! They would like us to do a seminar on Love on Wheels next year at this conference and someone from a large national organization told me our program should be a model for all transport programs--so everyone, pat yourselves on the back because YOU have made it possible. Sometime in the next couple of weeks, Sharon, Jan, Amanda, or Shelly will pull our 500th dog, whose foster just may get a little surprise gift so if you're thinking of fostering, April is a good time to do so! 

Stacy Smith with HSFM Love on Wheels posting from the Texas Unites for Animals conference

Our own Jan Herzog missed the Road to Forever Transport Day for the first time yesterday since she helped get the local foster transport program on the road. We missed you, too, Jan, and I am yet convinced that you and Stacy, aside from all that you accomplished, still managed to have too much fun.

Damn dogs!

When it rains....

"Bring you all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house, and prove me now herewith, said the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." ~ Malachi 3:10

Lord, what I wouldn't have given for Google back when I thought I would make a preacher! Plug in a pinch like "...pour you out a blessing..." into search, and up pops about 3.9 million hits before you've finished typing! Ever mindful of Rev. Debbie's admonition against using quotations overly much in my writings, I do so here because this snippet above woke me this morning, and all because of an old foundling trowel on my front porch.

Yesterday was a day, wasn't it! We actually got some rain on the Rolling Plains, just about enough to wet the bottom of my rain gauge, one of Annie's old cake pans I left lying out. The rolling thunder and the lightning streaking the southeastern sky was more than excuse enough to duck into the cave and enjoy the show. I was settled, too, just inside the open door when it dawned on me to set the rain buckets out! You see, it's those little things ~ like putting out the rain buckets to catch runoff ~ one loses with lack of practice, and we have not had a good soakin' rain here goin' on nine months.

So we set all the yard buckets we had under the cave's eaves, then dashed to the house to enlist several of Annie's old plastic mixing bowls and a soup pot to collect runoff from the back porch. Got to dump three of the smaller bowls into the soup pot before it was all done and came away with nearly five gallons of water reserve for Annie's growing gardens.

For all the fun of playing in the rain, Annie was quick to remind that we had actual Old People chores to tend to; little things like delivering the rent check for another month's stay at The Home. By the time we had tacked on getting a bite to eat, it was near dark when we returned.

Lying on the front porch beside Annie's boot garden was this beautiful old trowel, heavy and well formed to fit the hand, an old school tool you can't find in today's cut rate mega markets. Some person or persons unknown clearly had come by while we were out and left this offering on our porch. But who?

Doesn't really matter who although the answer was found on Annie's cell phone much later last night. What does matter is a simple, beautiful act of paying it forward, neighbor-to-neighbor, without being asked and without expectation of return.

Thanks, Peggy!!! Your going on the Zucchini List!

Making rain and creating rainbows

Perhaps it is because I am a grandson of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl and wartime rationing that patience never has been my long suit. I don't want much, but what I want, I want NOW.

Set up camp in the backyard Saturday morning on the pretense of "doing yard chores". That was about 10:30, and the temperature already was north of 70F degrees. Cedar row between our house and our neighbor lady to the east was cacophonous with boat-tailed grackles, but it beat all to hell whatever babble was issuing forth from the TV inside.

Right off we got the rainmaker going on the front lawn as it takes right at an hour to deliver an inch of water across the yard. No doubt you've heard by now that the Rolling Plains--all of Texas, for that matter--is facing what the folks that are paid to know are calling "moderate to worsening" drought conditions. Here in River City we're running some 7.5 inches behind our mythical annual rainfall average. When that happens responsible citizens (and I pretend to be one) begin throwing water at their lawns, mainly to keep alive turf grasses that have no business being in this part of the country. With any luck and a lot of education, we may be able to change that pig-headed behavior before we go completely dry. Anyone who cares to read more on what I'm talking about is encouraged to read Eric Berger's piece from the Houston Chronicle, "Drought's grip threatens state with arid 2011" .

But I digress, for it was not a lack of patience, waiting on the Lord to deliver rain, that got me going Saturday. It was that damned itch to scratch in the dirt. Around these parts our mythical average last frost is mid March, but everyone knows to be prepared for what is known as the "Easter Freeze". With the warmer than normal weather we have experienced for over two weeks now, I have been not entirely successfully resisting the urge to put seed in the ground. Yesterday I gave up and gave in.

The good news is if we do get that late freeze down the road, the roma and cherry tomatoes are in recycled cat litter tubs that can be brought inside. The sage, dill and poppies, however, will just have to take their chances with what Ma Nature delivers.