April Shower

Listen, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants. I will proclaim the name of the LORD. Oh, praise the greatness of our God! Deuteronomy 32:1-3 (NIV)

April Showers bring May flowers. It is finally raining here. While the northern portions of our state have flooding, we are still in a drought. The couple small showers we’ve had over the last few weeks greened the lawn, but was not enough to make things really grow. Husband planted grass seed in the horse pasture two weeks ago, and it is yet to sprout. He did everything as instructed, raked the ground, spread the seed, raked it back in and watered it twice per day, but not one blade has emerged as yet. We’ve been a little nervous about watering so much as our area has a no watering rule in effect. You can only water with a hand held hose. We tried to find some exceptions on the water management web site for people with agricultural land and on a well, but could not find one. So, we are assuming it is okay as long as we do it before dawn and after dark. Of course, we all know what assuming means, and this year there are no warning notices, but a $500 fine for the first offense. We don’t really know what else to do. The horses have to have grass. We don’t water the acreage around the house or our flower beds. We don’t have fruit trees or vegetables that need to be watered, and I gave up my roses, so anything non essential has been eliminated. We even have a rain barrel that I can use for the one small flower bed by the back door, but until today, it was dry. I think it is probably full and overflowing now. The rain barrel was made by my friend and Master Gardener, Bethany. She used a plastic barrel, put screen mesh over the top and screwed it into place with a ring. It has a spigot on the bottom so I can attach a hose to it. On the island where we live, the early settlers all had cisterns and rain barrels for their source of fresh water. I read an interview with one of them that said they used to strain the mosquito larvae out of the drinking water with their teeth. No wonder there was so much yellow fever. Then, they discovered artesian water, fresh water that flows freely out of the ground. When they no longer had to depend on rainwater for irrigation, agriculture really took off on our island which became famous for its celery, citrus and gladiolus. I was thinking about the rain barrel and how much it is like the way some of us think of time with God and Bible Study. We think we can store it up by one weekly visit to church on Sunday morning. In fact, it needs to be a daily effort. That is the only way to stay fresh and clean. Otherwise, we get stale and nasty things start to grow in our lives. Drink deep and absorb the greatness of God and let His love grow in your heart!