We’re praying for rain. I’m told that perhaps by the time you read this scribbling, the clouds will have covered the sky and actually opened up. Heaven knows we need it. A drive in the country will tell you just by how much.
We are all well aware that spring has arrived at least two weeks early this year. I’m tempted to say with a vengeance.
Actually, it came without all those showers that produce May flowers to quote a Schubert song. But, this lack of water goes back to before spring shipping in.
We received well below the amount of snow we usually get from Ol’ Man Winter. Plus, the ground never really froze and to my knowledge, that is a first. I was digging fence-post holes in January! Unheard of!
So when you drive the country roads that are not paved, you create a cloud of dust rising behind you. Doesn’t matter that you are obeying the speed limit, it’s that dry, a condition that doesn’t generally occur until sometime in July.
Quickly you have to actually concentrate on the speed of your vehicle while trundling down the road. Not nice engulfing pedestrians out for a stroll or brisk cardio-vascular hike in road dust.
Equally not courteous creating a dust screen for the folks driving behind you nor will you win friends among neighbours if you whizz along with a large cloud billowing up behind you and it being pushed by some breeze across their yard, covering those struggling May flowers.
As I mentioned, one doesn’t traditionally have to worry about such dust-ups for a couple of months yet.
As I mentioned, one doesn’t traditionally have to worry about such dust-ups for a couple of months yet.
Recently I chanced to drive south of the border. Re-entering Canada, I was greeted by two chaps dressed in road safety vests who had erected a large sign warning motorists of wild-fire hazards.
There is a fire ban in place throughout the northwest. I stopped at Ryden’s store before negotiating the border crossing. What was the topic of discussion? The lack of rain.
So those folks are aware of the same conditions. The border, in terms of nature, is an artificial human invention. Our southern neighbours need rain just as much as do we.
And yet, even though surface conditions are tinder dry, the soil is not.
So those folks are aware of the same conditions. The border, in terms of nature, is an artificial human invention. Our southern neighbours need rain just as much as do we.
And yet, even though surface conditions are tinder dry, the soil is not.
The other day a neighbour came with his great big backhoe machine and dump truck to fetch some of the well-rotted manure from Mount Crumpet.
The plan was to take the good stuff at the back. In order to do that, he had to go through the bush (I’d made a clearing for his machine).
“How’d it go?” I queried.
“I had to scrape the manure with the backhoe. The ground is still very soft and wet. I was going to get stuck,” he replied.
He could only get one dump-truck load.
Speaking of manure, another neighbour was fetching the piles I’d scraped in the horse paddocks to spread on a hay field. The higher section was hard; but when she tried to drive her tractor and spreader on the lower ground, her machines just sank.
She came and asked me to help pull her free with my tractor Big Red. Couldn’t do it. Red’s tires just spun. I was in danger of getting stuck. The soil, well-worked from decades of farming, is black and very moist in that part of the field.
Red and I had to accept defeat. Something much more powerful with four-wheel drive was required.
A final sign for me about the dryness is the extremely low levels of water in creeks, streams and our beaver ponds.
How are Beave and Mrs. Beave managing? I guess with diligence, order and good government.
Still, pray for rain.
You can contact Rural Roots by e-mail: fbljones@hotmail.com or write to Rrural Roots, P. O. Box 402, South Gillies, Ont. P0T 2V0.
