Ida Rather Not Have This Much Rain
Today I’m wondering if Mother Nature has a sick sense of humor or is she just pissed? (and I mean this in multiple vernaculars) Here it is, a hump day prior to a double-whammy holiday weekend, the beginning of the school year, and the apex of a bountiful growing season and it’s raining so hard I can barely see the flashing light on the cellular tower less than a sighted mile away. For four hours it’s been raining hard and the worst has yet to arrive. At least it’s not terribly windy, a lessening of the damages or perhaps I wonder too soon.
But I’ll take too much rain over not enough any day of the week.
While festival followers are in a full meltdown over Bonnaroo being cancelled for a second year in a row, crop farmers had to double-time it to harvest ripe fruits and vegetables which quickly turn to mush in extreme weather conditions—a now or never decision.
I knew Hurricane Ida would bring heavy rains but seeing the forecast for a possible eight inches in less than 24 hours put me into action long before the cacophony of National Weather Service Alerts on all the weather apps forced me to completely turn off the sound on my phone.
Yeah, I know your Labor Day backpacking and kayak trip has been planned for months. No, I don’t know what you should binge-watch while you are stuck at home. Maybe I should quit reading my messages, too.
It’s coming down twice as hard as when I started writing this week’s blog. The usual drainageways on the farm are beginning to funnel water in an orderly manner, like first graders during a fire drill as the silvery ribbons appear in the cleavages of the topography. Despite cleaning the standpipe’s grate and screen clogged with black walnuts and geese feathers, the heavy precipitation will force the pond to flow over the spillway through one of the pastures. More gates to close. Better safe than having to fish a critter out of the swollen rush of water that’s not normally there. All the known choke points and problem spots have been cleaned, caulked, scraped, and cleared as best possible.
The urge to text pictures of the pastures, a verdant green now veined with running water, to my friends out west is shelved. They’re on fire…literally. Their texts are more along the lines of Hey, we’ve evacuated. We’ll let everyone know where we are when we get there. The worst having been, We’ve lost everything, but we’re still alive. To complain about a day of rain in that context seems almost silly.
The rains have slowed, but the winds are picking up—the tail end of Ida. Radar is showing me a small break in the band of pink turned blue if only for long enough for a quick inspection to make certain all preventative measures worked and no new issues have arisen. I’ll dress for being outside for hours even if it only takes minutes. That’s agriculture—the oldest form of legalized gambling between humanity and nature.
Ok, I’m back after a long walk around the farm. I got wet, not soaked and my mind is at ease. The native floodplain worked as it should because it has not been torn out and planted with row crops. The drainage tiles gush with unimpeded water because they have been cleared of debris such as dead branches and silt. The concrete pad in front of the barn is pristine so the livestock won’t be standing in muck up to their ankles, the water draining through a series of holes and pipes that direct it to the catchment pond, the centerpiece of the farm that is a habitat for an assortment of wildlife including migratory birds, amphibians, fish, and insects.
These are the behind-the-scenes happenings on farms that most market patrons never hear about, or even get to see. Afterall, who would have an open farm day during a hurricane. Getting to truly know our land is part of putting food on the table. What fields are going to flood? Which greenhouse or high tunnel needs a little TLC so high winds don’t peel off the skin—a catastrophe of epic proportion.
Messages roll in from the west where those I’ve worried about through drought and fires are now concerned for me. Am I flooded? Are the animals ok? It’s a relief to deliver good news to those who most need it even if I can’t send the rain their way.