We arrived to a very hot, very dry Indiana yesterday. Driving down the last few miles to my parents’ house we passed entire fields of corn that are lost to the drought. Brown stalks of corn no more than 3 feet high. A sad sight indeed and a reminder of how dependent most small farmers are on the whims of the weather; an ever riskier venture in the face of climate change.
Despite the fact that the last substantial rainfall here was in May, the cornfields directly surrounding my parents’ house are still vivid green, with corn leaves only slightly curled. This is due to their location on ground that is clay rather than sand. In rainy summers the clay can be a liability – right now it is a godsend.
Yesterday evening after our arrival I stepped out of the house and was greeted with a blast from my past – the smell of grass and cornfields mixed with a lot of heat and some humidity. It is a smell that as far as I know only exists in Indiana in the summertime. It’s great and I wish there was some way to convey it in words or photos. The best I can do is – it smells like life from the earth – rich and deep.
Of course, we are here, not only to see family and enjoy the farm, but to go swimming at the local pool. It is so hot here that the water is cool but not cold and you can jump in with no preamble or hesitation. Lovely. We spent 3 hours in the water today and plan to extend that time as the week goes on.
Tomorrow is the 4th and so there will be fireworks; not only the fireworks show put on by the local businesses (and heavily guarded this year by all the local firehouses due to an extremely high risk of fire), but also the fireworks we set off at my parents’, and this is the main reason my kids like being here on the 4th rather than in New York City. You can’t beat the public fireworks over the Hudson, but we can’t (legally) shoot fireworks off in our ‘backyard’ in the city, and here we can. So we will, keeping the garden hose at the ready to prevent any rogue sparks from lighting the yard on fire and turning the 4th into a more dramatic light show than originally planned.
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If you’d like, pray for a little rain here – preferably at night. In lieu of prayer, we also accept rain dances, offerings to the rain gods or silent meditation in which rain is the primary focus. If you are living in an area currently experiencing flooding, send a little of that moisture north.
The cornfields and their owners will thank you.
Yesterday's sunset, behind a still green cornfield & lots of brown grass.
View from the porch
