August 12, 2005
Rain, rain, don't go away, take off your coat and stay awhile
After a year that was drier than any on record, ever, for over 150 years, yesterday morning Galesburg was hit with a thunderstorm that wet the ground and started the grass a-greening. Then, overnight, it started drizzling and wandering back and forth into a moderate rain, which continues even now.
And for all that it means I can't do some of the things I planned for today, and that I'll have to mow the lawn Monday (first time!), this is still an utterly unmitigatedly good thing. Even if we "catch up", the crop yields will be quite low, and it'll be some time before all the various retention ponds and reservoirs are replenished. But at least most of the crops and trees and grass won't die. And it's starting to feel and smell like a Midwestern summer again; it had gotten literally painful to walk barefoot on the sharp, desiccated grass, and despite frequent humidity it smelled more like a desert.
The "Drought of '05" (that'll surely have to be "aught-five" for the rhyming possibilities) will be something talked about for a long, long time, I'm sure.
The forecasts predict rain until Sunday, though. Thank God.
"I soon felt the astonishment that often comes to me during worship... it is the wonder that I should be there at all. My faith was non-existent, or at least deeply submerged, for so long a time, but liturgy pulled me back." --Kathleen Norris
Posted by blahedo at 1:10pm on 12 Aug 2005