April showers bring May flowers.
You’ve no doubt heard that old adage as a child and it still rings true. The cold snows of winter suddenly turn to the warm rains of spring, encouraging new growth in plant life of all kinds.
It’s important that we keep our flower and vegetable plants watered, especially when they are first rooting and establishing deeper footing. Sprinklers do a fine job and are important but there is just nothing better than a good soaking from a warm spring rain. I can’t explain it other than it must be the deep soaking of a rain that seems to do a much better job at hydrating plants.
Step outside after a good downpour with the clouds fading away and the sun re-emerging — all the dust in the air has been removed and everything seems brighter, fresher, and pure again.
Conservation is reviving our interest in water retention with the use of rain-barrels for watering our gardens and supplementing our household uses. Local programs have been initiated and to create even more interest they have incorporated a rain-barrel painting contest that includes prizes and an auctioning of the barrels.
This practice was normal in years gone by, especially by farmers. It was not unusual to see old wooden barrels or other makeshift containers that would “catch” rain run-off from a farmhouse or barn. The ladies loved this softer water to wash their hair in and to do their laundry in as well. Well drilling came next and pumps incorporated to fill cisterns or holding tanks.
My grandfather’s farmhouse on C.R. 14 in Middlebury had a cistern in a back room that was at least six feet wide and quite deep. This room was their “clean-up” area when coming in from the barn or the fields and had a hand pump installed to pump fresh water from the cistern. It was crystal clear, cold, and drinkable and always welcomed after coming in from the hot and dirty fields or the barn after pitching hay for the many cows and horses. Of course back then they even made their own soap out of fat and tallow and lye. As a child I can still remember my mother making soap in this fashion and always had these brown chunks of it lying around in the laundry area- it resembled the old Fels Naptha brand that you could purchase at your grocers.
Water is a resource that should be taken seriously with conservation and steps taken to keep it from being contaminated by bad practices of everyone.
Chemical run-off from lawns and farms that border streams and waterways is always a concern for contamination. A buffer zone that allows water to penetrate the surface would be advised so that any applied chemicals can be filtered through the soil before entering the waterways. Unscrupulous dumping of trash and debris in and around lakes and streams is yet another source of water contamination.
Good responsibility by everyone will help keep our streams and lakes and waterways cleaner for us, our children, and all our wildlife.
A stroll in the woods after a warm spring rain will just about always produce wildflower sightings and mayflowers — it may also, if you’re lucky enough, produce an even rarer sighting — morel mushrooms.
Life
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Morel mushrooms
Reaping the benefits of the rainy season
THE DIRT ON GARDENING
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SHADES OF GREEN: Hoosiers are smart enough to have energy options
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A word a day can foster happy little belletrists
Summer is coming, and, with it, what some people see as the season for “brain drain.” Schools, even home schools, most times are out over summer, and our textbooks sit silent under a thin layer of dust while we’re at the beach, in the garden or singing in the minivan on the way to a national park.
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New parents should not expect to know it all
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