I Pinned My Hopes on El Nino

At some point in the miserable, hot, dry late summer I heard a news report that NOAA was predicting the return of El Nino, a warming of Pacific water that somehow brings rain to Kansas and other inner-continent states. 

We’ve been in a La Nina phase for almost two years now. La Nina is a bitch who tries to turn Kansas into a desert, so I was happy to hear that El Nino would be returning, bringing an end to our drought. I pinned my hopes on El Nino.

This morning Dennis said that “Kansas rain” was falling. We now consider a sheen of moisture that condenses on the concrete driveway and stone walkways to be Kansas rain. The sheen then evaporates.

I assured Dennis that El Nino was coming to save the day. But then I thought, “Shouldn’t he be here by now?” so I checked the Internet. Whoops! NOAA has canceled its El Nino prediction. Instead we will have neither El Nino or La Nina, but  “La Nada,” the nothing. I’m not joking; that’s what it’s called.

I’m disappointed and will not pin my hopes on a NOAA prediction again. El Nino is a tease, if you ask me.

But, hey, isn’t it odd that both our east and west coasts are being flooded with water from the sky while our continent’s inner core is drying up and could soon become a desert? Oh, what changes that would bring to our so-called civilization! 

If only I hadn't read about geology, which reminded me that our inner continent was once an inland sea, teeming with creatures whose skeletons are preserved as fossils in the stone wall that separates our back yard from the woods. 

All is change.

Copyright 2012 by Shirley Domer

A Late Thanksgiving

We are experiencing a prolonged drought. Eastern Kansas is 15 to 19 inches short of rainfall for the year. What’s more, our temperatures are much warmer than normal. Today it’s 69º. Tomorrow, the same.

I haven’t been writing about this because I can’t bear to. Watching Ken Burn’s Dust Bowl documentary, which ran on PBS last week, didn’t improve my outlook one bit. The great Dust Bowl drought lasted ten years. Ours has been only one or two so far, but I saw what could happen.

So I’m not writing about the drought. Instead, Dennis and I are making a late Thanksgiving dinner. We didn’t host the holiday dinner this year, but that meant we didn’t have any leftovers. We always enjoy the leftovers even more than the actual dinner. How nice it is to pull turkey, dressing, gravy, cranberry sauce and all the rest out of the refrigerator for a post-holiday meal!

The 11-pound turkey is roasting, cranberry sauce is cooling, a sweet potato is baking and I’ve just mixed the dressing, which is my very favorite part of the meal. I’ve always made dressing just the way my mother did. There’s no recipe; it’s made by instinct and experience.

Today it started with stale whole wheat bread. I keep a plastic bag in the freezer and as homemade bread goes stale I break it in chunks and freeze it. Today I hauled that bag out and dumped the contents into a big mixing bowl.

I also had four biscuits left over from breakfast and crumbled them into the mixing bowl with the stale bread. A few slices of fresh bread, cubed, brought the bread content to an acceptable level.

Next I went to the basement and pulled a couple of onions from the braid that hangs from a nail. The homegrown onions are almost gone, which is fine because they're beginning to sprout. I chopped them, some shallots (which last well into the spring) and celery stalks and leaves, then slowly sautéd them in butter until they were soft.

A generous amount of rubbed sage and parsley fresh from the garden topped off the ingredients.

Finally I added some broth from the giblets and enough chicken broth to moisten all the bread. Now, the dressing is baking in a buttered 9”-square baking dish alongside the turkey. It will be crispy on the top, sides and bottom but still moist in the center. Just right to be topped with gravy.

Aromas have my mouth watering and I can hardly wait to sit down to eat. Drought or no drought, we have a lot to be thankful for, especially with a second Thanksgiving dinner on the table. And if you think there will be a photo of the finished dressing, forget it. I'm ready to eat.

Copyright 2012 by Shirley Domer

Rain Envy

The blessing of rain came at three o'clock this morning. There was lightning! There was thunder! When Dennis checked the rain gauge it registered 1-1/2 inches. We could hardly believe our good luck.

I sent a message to our neighbor Laurie. "How much rain in your rain gauges?" (They have three.)

"Half an inch," she replied, adding that she is going to move to our house, where we consistently get more rain than she does.

Here in the drought belt whenever there's rain in the area e-mail messages go flying between friends and neighbors. Typically these messages are initiated by those who got rain.

"We had a nice soaking rain for about 45 minutes. Hope it rained at your house, too," they say.

 Sometimes, though, the  person who didn't get rain initiates the exchange. "I heard thunder at three o'clock," Barb wrote this morning, "but it only sprinkled. Did you get rain?"

Right now we're obsessed with rain and long for it. Summer rain in Kansas is almost always spotty. Western Missouri is pretty much the same. My brother, who lives there, told me a few weeks ago that rain fell on the north half of his tiny town (population: 218) but not on the south half where he lives. That's how it always is: some get it, some don't.

Those of us who don't get rain rejoice for those who receive its blessing, but we also feel a twinge of that rascally, deadly sin of envy. We try not to, but we can't deny the feeling. We're so weary of dragging hoses around, picking and choosing the plants we will try to keep alive and watching the others dry up. All the while our hope and resolve wilt under the unrelenting heat.

We're only human. A little twinge of envy doesn't seem so deadly under these circumstances. And sooner or later, our turn will come.

Hanging in There

The spotted fawn appears to have grown since it first appeared in these pages four days ago. Now it is tall enough to drink more comfortably from the bird bath.

This means that it is receiving nourishment from its mother, who also sometimes comes to drink along with another, younger doe. The trio also drink from our neighbor's bird bath.

They've never taken a drink from the large pot of water, although the fawn was tempted a couple of days ago. It approached the water pot several times, but jumped back in alarm when it got close enough to see its own reflection in the water. That's fine; we refill the bird bath several times each day for the deer and for the hordes of birds who come to bathe and drink.

Obviously our drought continues unabated, along with daily temperatures over 100º. As the photo shows, not all of the grass is dormant. Grass that is protected by the shade of trees still has some green showing. We don't water the grass, only recently-planted trees, the tomatoes and sweet potatoes, two clematis and the bed of hostas.

We don't hope for much good to come of this summer, but I'm hoping that this fawn will hang in there and live to maturity.

Heat Wave II

The heat goes on, 103º as I write this at nearly 7:00 p.m. We've lost count of the number of days over 100º. I personally blame Cynthia and Dick, who came here from Austin last month bringing scorching temperatures with them. They forgot to take the heat back home.

Adding insult to injury, grasshoppers have totally consumed the fragrant autumn chrysanthemum Pam gave me.

No fragrant blossoms this year. I've lowered my expectations and just hope it doesn't die!

One bright spot is that Bill and Carol, who are moving away, gave us their bird bath. It arrived just in time to save many thirsty birds. Chicken Creek has run dry, so this became a life-saving oasis for our birds. Birds came in by the dozen. A waiting line formed on nearby tree branches. Four juvenile robins just developing red breasts hang out all day at the bird bath, splashing and drinking. Others who come are cardinals, bluebirds, phoebes, titmice, song sparrows, and others I haven't identified.

Birds are shy, of course, so all I have to offer is a photo of an empty bird bath. You'll just have to take my word for it.