Teamwork

Fawn in the grass.

It’s a wonder what two inches of rain will do for a landscape. Everything softens. New leaves pop out of the trees. The grasses spring forth. Greens everywhere intensify. Sounds change and become more rounded. Even the ground relaxes. Weeds pull so easy there’s a sense the earth is saying, take it, I’ve got more. There’s good will all around.

Of course, we’re entering into summer and the sun soon will wants it’s due. The moisture unused by the trees and grasses will begin leaving. The ground will harden and tighten. New growth will slow and stop. Leaves will be given over to providing shade, protecting moisture laden dirt from the sun, and processing the sunlight falling onto them into energy to feed the trees. The tree will use the enemy’s power to defeat it, or at least hold it at bay.

I, the garden walker, will bring moisture where I can. Mostly we’ve tried to put in plants who understand low moisture days. But even those, when the sun burns down, can be overcome without a bit of assistance. That’s where our rain barrels come in handy, we can bring the stored rain, and say, remember this? It fell in June. Have a taste. They will perk up in thanks, and we all go back to living and waiting for the next rain to fall from the heavens. A team.

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale