Nourished by Rain
In Bay Country, fish swim, ponds brim. The Chesapeake is awash with fresh water, fed by daily rains, nearly absent of sea nettles. Our green summer world is wet and wild. At my yard, trees ever expanding in girth and leaf, march toward my deck, like an advancing army.
A niece visiting from out west luxuriates in the moisture of this verdant scene. A Marylander by birth, she misses the passing of the seasons, she says. Now she lives with wildfires the worst in five decades. Oh, for a rainy day, she sighs, and gets several while home.
For us, drought is over. Nothing is forever, of course. Still, we relish all that is nourished from this flourishing world that is ours this summer. All in nature prospers in the abundance. A frolicking foal seems to revel in the lush landscape. He nuzzles a fence near
Crandell Road in Southern Anne Arundel County and grows as fast as the weeds in the field.
Corn sweetens, born of fertile loam and mother nature’s kindness. Crape myrtle, weighted with magenta flowers, split and spill under heavy rains in Bayside front yards. Kudzu clutches all it can. Queen Anne’s lace sprouts willy nilly. Sunflowers face east, their surest source of sun nurture. Bluebirds return to produce yet another brood in my yard. Black-eyed Susans wink, blink and nod. Tobacco flowers. A llama on Riva Road soaks its feet in a pond made for ducks, now drying out on the shore.
Cucumbers swell and keep their cool. Pick early and often. Fried green tomatoes reign when the red won’t come. Kids will be playing football by the time these luscious fruit ripen. Only grape tomatoes give forth a blazing red sweetness.
My old dog no longer shivers in summer storms. Maybe she senses they’ll be with us for awhile. I take her behavior as a lesson that humans can get used to things, too. Like green tomatoes. Crickets and crabgrass and ground ivy. Shorter days (have you noticed?) And a wet and wild summer that gives us all we want and more.
Copyright 2000
Bay Weekly
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