Riches in the Ditches

Beauty is truly found in unsuspecting places.  All you gotta do is have your eyes open to see it and appreciate it. I think I've already told this story, but every year I see it and it reminds me.  About 24 years ago I was farming rice on our family farm.  I distinctly remember driving my truck down a gravel road between Carrier Road and Cotton Gin Road.  I was on my way to check the irrigation well we called the "big well."  It pumped cool, clear water from 180 feet below the flat, hot surface above.  

The well, powered by a big engine with straight pipes, was loud.  It roared.  The horsepower of that engine was impressive, lifting columns of water from the underground aquifer to the rice field where the fields were kept with a good flood of 6 inches of water for months.  Rice likes its feet wet.  When you got out of the truck, the noise of the engine would hurt your ears.  If you went at night time to check the oil in the engine or make sure that the dripper was still dripping hydraulic oil to lubricate the bearings, the manifold would glow cherry red. 

On this particular day, it was around noon.  It was a sultry summer day.  The air heavy with humidity, the mosquitoes buzzing, hungry for a feast of blood from some unsuspecting beast or man.  The sun beat down in punishing fashion.  As I was about to turn in, I noticed it in the ditch.  It was a clump of beautiful flowers.  Now, I'm not a flower guy, not a bit.  But it was hard not to admire this flower.

The Louisiana Iris.  It's the state wildflower of Louisiana.  The state flower of Louisiana is the magnolia flower.  It's flower is pure white, with a fresh, clean fragrance that you can't stop sniffing to get just one more scent in your nostrils.  The downside is that if you cut it off the tree to bring it inside, it turns brown very quickly, as if to communicate that it's better to leave it on the tree and admire its beauty in the outdoors.  The Louisiana iris is a vibrant purplish blue color, the color of royalty.  It has hints of deep gold that accent its beauty.  

How could something so beautiful be in a ditch and not in a manicured garden?  Because, like rice, the Louisiana iris likes its feet wet and what needs beauty more than a roadside ditch?  A couple decades ago, every rice farmer worth his salt had a Pony #2 shovel with an ash handle in the bed of his pickup truck sharpened to a razor edge to cut through levees and the tough leathery bodies of the cottonmouth moccasin, our arch enemy in the rice fields.

I pulled my shovel out of the back of the truck and walked to the ditch, pushing the ubiquitous empty beer can floating in the muddy water out of the way.  I dug deep into the soft mud and scooped out a big scoop of mud, making sure I had all the roots of the iris.  I had to rescue it and bring it to our new home 30 miles north.  I did leave some behind, though, as that roadside ditch needed beautification as well.

I planted it in a low area where a ditch on our property carries rainwater.  It always stays sort of wet and I figured it would be a good home for the Louisiana Iris, bringing beauty to our home.  And it has.  Each year, I look on it and smile and remember finding it.  The iris has thrived, multiplying and filling the ditch.  It blooms each April, never disappointing.  The wife and I always look for its blooms and announce to each other when the first bloom appears.

We even used a shovel to move some of it near the sidewalk on our back patio.  It announced its happiness to be in that location by spreading quickly to fill that bed.  Now we can enjoy it in two locations - the back patio and the ditch that runs through the grove.

We enjoy their blooms while they last.  Soon their beauty fades, however.

But we're left with the anticipation of the blooms next April, signaling spring and bringing back remembrances of finding riches in the ditches.

Lovely Louisiana Iris

About twenty four years ago, I was in my pickup truck at the farm in Oberlin.  I was driving down a gravel road that is between Cottongin Road and Carrier Road.  Our family farm has land the borders the southern part of that road.  There's a rice irrigation well there that we called the "big well."  It was a 12" well that had a big engine powering it.  I can remember as a kid riding along with my dad as he checked the oil in that well engine.  It would run for 24 hours a day for weeks on end flooding the rice fields.  The sound the engine would put out was excruciatingly loud.  When we would check the engine at night, the exhaust manifold would be so hot, it would glow 'cherry-red.'

Back to that day 24 years ago.  I was driving my truck with the windows rolled down listening to some country music, I'm sure.  I had my elbow resting on the door as I observed my surroundings.  Then I spotted it.  There in the roadside ditch in front of what was an old home-place, was a big clump of Louisiana Iris growing in the muddy water.  They were blooming.  I'm not even a flower guy, but I couldn't help but admire the beauty.

I got the shovel out of the bed of my pickup and scooped up one bunch of the iris out of the ditch along with the mud and set it in back of my truck.  I had a plan.  We had just bought the land where we were going to build our home.  I figured it would be neat to start something so beautiful at my home that was originally in front of an old, old homeplace.  Why, generations of people could enjoy the beauty of the Louisiana Iris.  I would plant it in the lowest, wettest part of our yard.  It would be the gift that would keep on giving.  If I could keep it alive...

Twenty four years later...

That shovel-ful of iris has expanded around the water oak that I planted it near and fills the ditch.  I think it is happy there.  And the blooms!  Have you ever seen something so beautiful?  Every spring, they brighten the yard with royal purple and yellow blooms.

We have a back patio and a couple of years ago, Tricia moved a few of the iris in the bed that borders the patio and the house.  That was a great idea.  They thrive there.  Rain falls off the roof, fills the water catchment tub we have for the honeybees and then spills over.  The soil stays moist there, making it an ideal spot for the iris.  It gives us a good chance to admire the blooms as we sit on the patio.

Plants tend to bring back memories.  You can look at trees or shrubs or plants in the yard and remember...  Oh, that's the Confederate Jasmine that's from my grandmother's house.  Or, that's the Formosa Azalea from my other grandmother's house.  Every time I look at the Louisiana Iris, I think about seeing them growing in the ditch on that gravel road at the farm as I slowly drove by that day.  I'm glad I had my shovel and thought to bring one home. The lovely Louisiana iris is still going strong after all those years.

From the Texas Line Back to Our Maker's Acres Family Farm on a Spring Day

I had a work assignment that led me out west to Starks, Louisiana.  Starks is pretty doggone close to Texas.  My wife was with me and I asked her how far the Sabine River was from our location.  She pulled up her map and said, "A half mile that way."  So we turned around and headed that way.  In no time at all we were on the bank of the Sabine River.  The sun was shining.  It was cool.  The current in the river was brisk.  Right on the other side is the State of Texas.

We made it back home, finished up with work and decided I would soak up a spring day just relishing the beauty of God's creation.  These were come oxalis that were blooming by the fence to the east of the pasture.  This is a bad weed in the garden, but it is beautiful if not growing in the garden.  I pulled these and fed them to the goats.  They were begging me for them.

Speaking of the goats, many years ago I planted some yellow iris along the border of the eastern fence.  My thought was that it would be a privacy fence.  Not so much for us but for the neighbors, so they wouldn't have to look at all the activity in the pasture all day.  Well, the goats had other plans, and I should have known better.  As soon as the iris came up, the goats devoured them.  The iris migrated to the east and now they form a border fence on the neighbor's property.  They are blooming now and are very pretty to look at.

Here is our Japanese Magnolia.  We call it Laura Lee's tree (our daughter).  It puts out blooms THEN puts on flowers.  I learned a valuable lesson from this tree.  We planted it in the side yard and planted it close to the sewer line.  Well, the roots clogged the drain line!

The previous photo highlighted the flower.  This one shows the entire tree.

Right next to the Japanese Magnolia is the Redbud tree.  Similarly, it puts on blooms BEFORE the big, heart-shaped leaves come out.

Here is a close up of the flowers.

Here is an African yellow iris.  Tricia planted this a couple years ago between the palm trees and has been waiting for it to bloom.  Well, it finally did!

Here is the red lily

And finally, the amaryllis.

Spring time is a beautiful time of year!