It's early September, a truly gorgeous day. The temperatures are hovering around 70, unusual for a late summer western Kentucky day but the gift of the recent hurricane that bounced around on the Atlantic coast. We got its winds and its cool but we didn't get its rain.
I have four very mature trees on my lot, very mature because I planted the three maples in the 70's and the cottonwood on the boundary line was a mature tree already, even at that time. The cottonwood is quite huge and a bit scary during times like the year of the Ice Storm of the Century, 2009. If it had dropped just one more ice laden limb on the kitchen corner of my house, the kitchen, deck and garage would no longer be. I would probably no longer be either.
But it shades my house from the setting sun every afternoon and setting suns can be brutal in this part of the state.
However, here it is the first week of September and the cottonwood is undressing all over my back and side yard. It's dry. It. Is. Dry. I'm not complaining, because there are those of my friends who are in such drought that fires are a continual threat. And I worry for them. And pray. And if I had a drop of rain I would give it to them before taking it for myself. But for many of us, there are no drops of rain.
It was only a few months ago that we were sandbagging against flooding rivers and hoarding drinking water because the flood waters were threatening the pumps of the city water plant. And it was only a few months ago that my irises and roses and daylilies were standing in water from an oversaturated ground. Yet they bloomed all summer long.
One day at a time, I tell myself. We make do with what has been given us, Aunt Bett always said. Nature will take care of herself, said Granny Ninna.
As I watch the seasons play tag with each other, as I watch them change from what I once knew to the unpredictable, I keep reminding myself, we are the earth's caretakers. It is what it is and I will make do. Without complaint. Maybe.
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| Seasons playing tag... by vic | Sep 7, 2011 2:39 PM | 0 |
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