Surprise and delight
31/07/16 05:02
By mid June, I thought we were in for a long, hot and dry summer. The grass in the back yard was beginning to go dormant from a lack of precipitation and the only patches of green were where we were watering every other day, such as the garden. It was promising to be a good year for tomatoes, however. The plants were thriving and putting on lots of fruit and as along as they get water, tomatoes love the warm weather. From Father’s Day on, however, I didn’t have to mow the back yard. It was so dry that the grass simply quit growing. For nearly a month, I got used to what I thought would be the pattern for the rest of the summer.
Then on the afternoon of July 15 we got hail. Lots of hail. There was a lot of precipitation with that storm and the water was gushing down the streets, but the lawn was covered with hail. The garden appeared to be devastated. The leaves were stripped off of most of the plants, with just a few stalks remaining. The squash plants were crushed into the ground. The few tomatoes that remained were bruised. The peppers had holes in them. I had visions of a long, hot and dry summer with no garden produce. That is the way of this country. Sometimes the weather can disappoint you. Sometimes it can seem a bit cruel.
Interestingly, however, the hail matted across the lawn and garden, a couple of inches thick in many places. The individual hailstones melted and refroze into each other, making a sheet of ice even though the air temperature remained in the sixties. It took more than 24 hours for the hail to melt. That long slow melt was the beginning of healing. Instead of running off, the moisture in the hail soaked slowly into the lawn. In a week, things began to green again. The grass that had appeared to be fully dormant took on a spring color. The deer began to nibble on the tender shoots. Meanwhile, out in the garden, the plants began to send out new leaves. The sunflowers started to produce new heads. The tomato plants were blossoming even though they barely had any leaves. Even the squash braved a few new blossoms that appeared to be growing directly from the ground.
The thunderstorms have continued at least one rain storm every couple of days. The humidity has been rising in the hills. The grasses have been greening. The plants are growing. With the warm temperatures and sufficient rainfall they are beginning to thrive.
The restorative capabilities of the land are amazing.
So I’m back to mowing the lawn again - all of it. We got three tomatoes from the garden in the last couple of days and more are coming. Things are growing again.
It has been a strange year, even for the hills.
And there is another bonus for me. The higher humidity means that in the wee hours of the morning there is a mist rising from the lake. The busy pace of my life has meant that I haven’t been able to paddle every day, but I still can find a little time for paddling many days. And, from my point of view, the best time to paddle is first thing in the morning before the sunrise burns the fog off of the lake.
For those of you who live near the ocean and know well the perils of fog, you have to understand that the lake where I most frequently paddle is very small. Chances of me getting lost are very slim. I know the lake very well and if I were to get disoriented, all I would have to do is paddle in any direction for ten minutes or so and I would encounter the shore. And I don’t encounter dangerous waves in the fog. If the wind were to blow enough to raise even a mild swell on the surface of the lake, the fog would be blown away. And the chances of encountering another boat in the fog are very slim indeed. First of all, most of the other boaters don’t like to get up as early as I. I usually encounter fishermen, who are among the earliest of risers, launching their boats as I am ready to take mine out of the water. And the jet skiers and wakeboarders don’t show up before 10 am or so. I pretty much have the lake to myself and when there is another boat out there, I’m aware of it long before our paths cross. There are no particular perils of fog as would be the case on the ocean or a more massive lake.
Paddling in the mist is a delightful and refreshing experience that always makes me mindful of the intense beauty of this world in which I am graced to live. A simple wooden paddle and a wooden canoe make for quiet travel and the fog seems to hold the sounds close in a way that is opposite to the amplification of sound that comes from very calm water on a clear day. Quiet and beauty combine for a type of solitude that restores the soul.
Of course there is no chance of getting lonely on the lake. The geese and ducks and the shorebirds all make their presence known and unlike some of my human companions, they don’t seem to mind rising early in the day. The deer come down to the shore to drink in the wee hours and barely lift their heads as I pass. The eagles like to fish in the mist. I think their vision is better tuned to see through the fog than mine. And the fish rise very close to the surface on a foggy morning. I often see lots of them as I paddle, so I assume that it is particularly good fishing for the eagles.
Most of all, the natural world retains its ability to surprise and delight me. Indeed, I am fortunate. And just when you think you’ve got it figured out and know what is about to happen, nature surprises you in a big way. It is a joy!