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When Did the Drought Begin?
One
day without rain is not a terrible thing. One raindrop does not offer
any relief from a drought; it is just a little tease of what could have
been. It may seem insignificant at the time but a day without rain or a
single raindrop may be just the beginning of large things with serious
consequences.
A
lot of things that seem so enormous and overwhelming to us actually come
from small beginnings in things or events that might have been unnoticed
or even undetectable at the start. Great wars have been fought because
of an ideological seed planted in the mind of a tyrant and left to grow
unchecked until it would cost millions of lives to bring it under
control. There is a lot of wisdom in the words of Barney Fife, "Nip
it in the bud."
Don’t
get the wrong idea. It is not just the potentially bad things that have
small beginnings and grow. Many good, worthwhile things have similar
small beginnings and grow up to be something great and responsible for a
lot of good things. It just seems that the bad things can just sit there
and fester and ferment and grow on their own while the good things need
nurturing and cultivating in order to reach their full potential.
Without nurturing and cultivating, most good things tend to nip
themselves in the bud.
One
raindrop may seem insignificant but it could be the first raindrop of a
flood. A day without rain could also be the first day of a drought.
Technically, a drought has begun even while there may be a rainbow in
the sky. Try telling someone that we are now in a drought right after a
mud-soaking, frog-strangling rain while they are looking at a rainbow
and you’ll get some strange looks. I’m familiar with some of those
strange looks.
The
drought of 2006 probably had such a beginning. About a week after the
last good rain you would probably have heard comments such as "we
could use a little rain now." Another week goes by and the
comments would change to "we sure need a good rain." By
the third week comments are about how the pastures and crops are drying
up and yields are being hurt and the dreaded word "drought" is
used more commonly. Farmers are now talking about when the drought
began; and the drought is now measured by how long ago it was to the
last rain, not when the crops began to be effected. (However, the
weathermen are still talking about a gorgeous weekend with no rain in
sight to mess it up.) That first day after a rain might have been
welcomed at the time but it is now officially the first day of the
drought. The shower that might have prevented, or at least delayed the
drought a few weeks ago, is not near enough to bring it into check now.
A
tree dying is similar to the way a drought works. We might not even
notice that a tree is dying or is dead until well after whatever event
was the determining factor in the cause of death. We might wonder what
caused it and when it happened. Like it or not, if we, our businesses or
even our country fail, we are much like the tree that has died. The
cause of our failure was probably not some catastrophic event that
happened suddenly, but the result of some small something in the past
that we couldn’t pinpoint.
The
following poem is about a huge old oak tree that was on the property
line of my granddad’s farm.
When The
Oak Tree Died
I
got a call the other day
From friend of mine
About an old oak tree
On the property line.
He
said it had died
And limbs had begun to fall
And would tear down his fence
In no time at all.
So
I gathered my tools
And sharpened my saw,
Used a cable and tractor
To direct her fall.
What
once was a landmark
Would now soon be forgotten
Like the acres she had guarded
That once proudly grew cotton.
She
was also a place
Where my grandfather played,
And his father before him
Had appreciated her shade.
On
the ground she now rested
And forever would lie.
I couldn’t help but think,
When did she die?
How
long had she stood there
Looking so stately,
From a tower of strength
To her condition of lately?
The
wind did not claim her
In a brief moment in time,
Just as you might expect
Of the loblolly pine.
She
had survived summer droughts
And had laughed at the wind.
But had made no defense
From the decay that grew within.
Let
the wise learn a lesson
From the mighty, felled by strife.
Keep your heart with all diligence
For out of it are the issues of life.
Darrell
Thompson is the Moulton store manager of Lawrence County Exchange. |
