Petrichor was something that we were unfamiliar with over the past couple of summers. At the end of November last year, we were 22 inches behind in rainfall. You could walk across the St. Croix River in some spots. The little pond by our house that formerly hosted peepers and wood ducks dried up. Apple trees dropped their apples and wild grapes dropped their grapes. Trees starting dropping their leaves. It was, simply, very sad.
It was a particularly difficult summer for me, because we were doing our very best to get our food forest established and convert our three acres of turf grass into native plantings, in the middle of a drought. We fenced in our orchard and we prepared to convert it into a food forest. (Will explain that concept in another blog.) We laid cardboard and mulch over at least half an acre of land one wheelbarrow at a time. We literally planted thousands of plants; native plants, fruit trees, berry bushes, sedges, strawberries, herbs, tree guilds...you name it and we probably planted it.
And then the rains stopped. They simply stopped. At least for us. Which meant all those plants were thirsty and needed water. Which meant standing at the end of a hose for hours EVERY SINGLE DAY for weeks, that turned into months. And all that watering I did at home was in addition to the two to three hours a day that I would water at work.
It was mind-numbing and in self-preservation mode, I let my my wander. And where it wandered sometimes was a dark and angry place, only fueled by watching the radar and literally seeing the rain go one mile north or two miles east or simply dissipate after hitting the heat island of the Twin Cities metro area and then the St. Croix River Valley.
My attitude declined rapidly.
I was so so so very discouraged and confused because what we are trying to do to our little corner of the world is such a wonderful thing. We're returning parts of the yard to their natural state, creating habitat and food for bees and butterflies and birds and bats and hairy wood crickets and all the other little creatures living in our trees and flowers. Why was Mother Nature so mad at me? Yes, ME! Because I started to take it very personally. The lack of rainfall was difficult enough to deal with but not as difficult as watching it rain just miles away from where I was sitting, crying, on the stairs of my greenhouse. ( I wrote about this on my Facebook page and I'll post it in my next blog.
Today it happened again. A line of storms as shown in the picture above went about one mile south of our house. At one point we had lighting to the east, storm clouds to the south and blue sky overhead. Sunlight and Lightning.
The clouds were beautiful but my heart was not. It may be PTSD from last summer but I started crying as I walked to the food forest to water the plants we bought over the winter.
I started the 2023 season with high hopes. We received about twice as much snow this winter than normal so that did help with the river and pond levels and to replenish the aquifer. Over the winter, I bought the final plants to complete the food forest and within the last month they have started to arrive. We have persimmons, lingonberries, kiwis, dwarf mulberries, goji berries, guomi berries, paw paws, nectarines and nectacots and others I won't remember until they arrive.
I hoped that the moisture pattern we had this winter would continue into spring and summer and we could get the food forest planted this summer and then open it up to tours next summer. It will not, apparently.
I remember talking to a family member last summer on a particularly bad day and their response was "stop buying plants." Which in my mind quickly became "just give up on your dream." And many, many times, I almost did. I don't know what made us keep going but we did. And today, I am again feeling a bit maudlin and wondering why we keep keeping on.
I suppose it's because I believe in what we are doing. I believe the impact someday will be greater than we will be around to enjoy. When I see the bees rioting around the plums trees. When I saw a Painted Lady butterfly on the forsythia. When a snowy wood cricket dropped out of the ash tree and lingered for a bit on the table on our deck before flying away. When the Indigo Buntings are mingling with grosbeaks and orioles and finches at our bird feeder. When fourty-five turkeys visited our yard every day this winter and when the local bear tries to break into my bird feeder storage box.
When someone comes to visits and leaves thinking "I'm going to do that in MY yard."
When I realize that something will benefit from every inch of our land that we have poured our hearts, souls and apparently, our sanity, into.
And just now, BC declared he saw the first hummingbird of the season!
I'll take that as a sign, because this time, I am taking it personally.
I did not know that