Promises of Rain

I just finished watering the lawn. We have an automatic sprinkler system, but it is old so I have to manually operate it, turning on each section and then checking to make sure the sprinkler heads all popped up and aren’t spraying into the street.

We are under water restrictions due to drought and can only water once a week. I wish I had a xeric lawn, but I don’t. The landscaping at my house probably dates back to 1934 when water was not the issue it is today. When we bought this house we took on large trees, shrubbery, and lots of grass. I am trying to be a good steward of the limited water resources, but I don’t want everything in my yard to die.

Yesterday was my day to water but I felt optimistic about the thirty percent chance of rain so I waited. The blue sky clouded over, my storm phobic Border Collie hid in her kennel, and the temperature dropped into the double digits. Hurrah, maybe the weather forecast was right this time.

I made a cup of tea and sat under the awning on the patio to watch the storm roll in. Weather watching is one of my favorite activities, one I don’t get to participate in much in west Texas. As the sky grew darker and the distant thunder grew louder and closer I could hear raindrops on my canvas shelter, but found it odd that the cement patio remained dry. It was raining, just not enough to “stick.”

After my second cup of tea I gave up on the rain. The weatherman on the five o’clock news said there was still a chance, but I think he is a big fat liar. Today he is reporting a twenty percent chance but I’m not feeling very optimistic. I saw it as an eighty percent chance of no rain and turned on the sprinkler.

Andy Wilkinson, a wonderful singer/songwriter from my hometown, wrote a song called “Promises of Rain.” The chorus goes:

Storms, they build up over me,
They clatter all around,
But the rain falls east of me
When crops are in the ground.
There is no balm in Gilead,
But on the Staked Plains
God anoints this farmer’s head
With promises of rain.

This song has been on my mind these past two days. Promises of rain are about all we get lately. Another thing that’s on my mind is – it’s only my lawn I’m worrying about, not crops.

I pity the farmers who are irrigating or trying to raise a dry-land crop. I pity the consumer who will pay the increased cost somewhere down the line. I just downright pity the lack of rain. Keep those promises coming, sooner or later the weather forecast has to be right.

(You can find Andy Wilkinson’s song, “Promises of Rain” on his Radio Free America c.d. You should check it out. http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/andy-wilkinson/id674410)