Becoming Drought Resistant

In normal times, this simple blog contains the ramblings of a simple guy that likes the agrarian life and simpler times. I am partial to old fashioned values and a Biblical worldview.  Sometimes, we depart from that theme, but not often.  

Before Benjamin's accident, we were in the middle of a long drought.  What made it worse is that it was during the peak summer months where temperatures exceed 100 degrees for days on end.  To give you an illustration of exactly how dry it is, I'll share some numbers with you.  We have a rain gauge that we watch and tally the numbers.  Yes, it's kind of nerdy but we've done that for a while.  In fact we have 10 years of rainfall data.  Our ten year average annual rainfall is 65.89 inches.  I added up the numbers through September and for 2023 we've had 32 inches of rain.  Granted, we have 3 months left in the year, but October and November traditionally are two of the driest months.  We have 10 years of data to back that up.  We're almost 3 feet short of rainfall.  That's hard to imagine.

I've been looking up different techniques of drilling my own water well in the back yard, just to perhaps be self-sufficient in terms of water for the animals and for irrigation.  We do have about 500 gallons of rainfall catchment capacity coming off of our roof, but in order to sequester rainwater, you've got to have rain.  The drought has made me think of water more than I normally do.  Water is usually so prevalent in south Louisiana.  In hindsight, when building our house, I wish that I had sunk concrete cisterns and piped all of the greywater into them to use for irrigation of the garden and fruit trees.

The other day, we made a short trip to our church to water the landscaping.  In the spring we had put in some new plants and we have tried to water three times a week to keep the plants alive.  Here is a photo of the grass in the church yard.  It's dead, brown, crispy when you walk on it.  Normally it's lush and green.

Our little country church has parking on both sides.  On one side, we call it the 'country side,' because it's just grass with a limestone base.  On the side closest to the main road, we call it the 'city side,' because it has a concrete parking lot.  We parked our vehicle on the city side and walked around the corner to begin watering the box woods and knockout roses.

And then I looked down at the concrete.  This concrete bakes in the summer sun.  And yet, there's weeds growing through small cracks in the surface!  How can this be?  If this was something good like a vegetable plant, it would have withered up and died a long time ago.  But these weeds are as healthy and lush as ever.  

The weeds aren't stressed.  They aren't brown.  They are thriving.

Okay, I know I'm being overly dramatic.  I'm bad about that sometimes, but this blog is a therapeutic thing - a journal of sorts.  How does one become drought resistant?  What lessons can we learn from the weeds thriving in cracks on the city side of the parking lot in the middle of a drought?

First is determination.  These weeds have an absolute will to live.  Their prognosis is not good.  Even in times of rainfall and good conditions, they don't stand much of a chance of survival.  The odds are stacked against them.  They don't listen to all that.  They just survive.  

The next is some wisdom I learned from an old-timer I was talking to the other day.  He told me, "Kyle, even though it it dry, try not to water your garden too much.  Give it just enough to keep it alive.  You see, if you water too much, the plant's root system will be shallow and when the rainfall stops, they suffer.  But, if there's not a lot of water, it forces the plant's root system to grow down deep to get to the water."  That's what these weeds in the parking lot have done.  Their root system has grown down through the four inches of concrete and deep into the soil below where it finds water to keep it nourished - even in the midst of a drought.

Sometimes we miss it, but if we slow down, there is knowledge we can learn most anywhere we look.  We can learn a lot from the bahia grass growing in the cracks of the city side of the parking lot at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Jennings.  There's some great spiritual principles there as well.  Be determined.  Even in tough times, when things aren't going your way, persevere.  In times of adversity or even persecution, stand fast in your faith.  Grow your roots deep in God's Word and be nourished on his daily provision.  Drink the Living Water and never thirst again.  But the Good Book says best:

7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.  8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.  Jeremiah 17:7-8

That's how you become drought resistant in a dry and thirsty land.