I am aware that it has been a dry spring and summer since it is approaching the middle of July and I have only mowed our lawn once!

Our local paper announced on its front page this past week, “Rainfall in Wheaton was 3.46 inches below normal during June”.

That kind of a headline is the reason I never ever considered farming as my life’s occupation. Farming can be likened to visiting the casino every summer with the families’ nest egg.

I did grow and sell pumpkins for twenty years; however, I was doing it as a hobby farmer and the investment was not on the grand scale that a serious farmer’s investment would be today.

As the spring and summer progressed and Mother Nature remained very stingy with the rainfall I wrestled with my options.

I could wait and hopefully the rains would come in time to save the garden crops. This would be my favorite method of watering the garden, thus I call it my Plan A. 🙂

Or I could hook up my little wagon to our riding lawnmower, place six five- gallon pails filled with well water in the wagon and drive ever so slowly to the garden.

The slow drive would ensure that most of the water remained in the pails and did not splash on the lawn as the trip was made, arriving at the garden with pails half full of water. 🙁

Now I’m sure the lawn grass was cheering for a bumpy, splashy trip as they too were suffering from a lack of moisture.

Once arriving at the garden, I would fill a sprinkling can with water from the five- gallon pails and begin dousing hills of tomatoes, watermelon, cucumbers and pumpkins with well water.

Since the plants were in the early stages of growth it was a feasible process. But I realized as the plants grew watering with a sprinkling can would have to be abandoned to a more efficient method.

This sprinkling can and well watering process I call my “stalling and hoping” method or Plan B.

If the dry spell persisted, I would be forced to go to plan C and I really didn’t want to go to plan C! 🙁

During my pumpkin growing career, we suffered through several dry summers. The pumpkin crop was in danger of drying up, so I made an investment.

I purchased a pump and 500 feet of hose and syphoned water out of our creek that bordered our property.

It was a great conditioning exercise. Once I started the syphoning motor down by the creek, I had to run 500 feet to get to the end of the hose and direct the water onto the pumpkin plants.

Cardiac arrest was always in the back of my mind as I made those 500- foot dashes. 🙂

To make the workouts even more strenuous the 500 feet of hose was lying in a thick stand of five- foot- tall switch grass!

So, you can understand why I was not excited about executing Plan C!

Plan B was keeping the garden plants growing; however, the plant’s increasing size would soon require stepping up to the feared Plan C.

This past Saturday I spent the morning filling the water tank with well water, transferring the water into five- gallon pails and making the slow trek across the lawn to the thirsty garden plants.

It was becoming obvious that this method of watering would soon be ending as the vining crops were ever expanding.

It appeared that the upcoming week would require that the syphoning motor and 500 feet of hose be put into action.

I shuddered to think about it!

Would I be able to walk, much less run, the 500 feet to direct the creek water onto the thirsty garden plants?

I knew I should be digging through the shed and searching for the syphoning pump and dragging out the 500 feet of hose. But the plants have just been watered so there are a couple days before they get thirsty again.

I decided to wait a couple days.

That afternoon we were making a trip to town and as we traveled along the highway, I noticed the skies were getting very dark. But that had happened several times that summer and someone else always got the rain.

There is an old belief in our community that Lake Traverse causes storms to split, causing sure rains to move and completely miss croplands in need of rain.

The scientist in me scoffs at the idea of a body of water one mile wide having the ability to cause such an effect on a weather pattern.

So, as I watched the dark clouds heavy with rain, I muttered to myself, “Don’t go proving me wrong storm clouds! Let’s have no splitting here. Embarrassing a guy who taught science all his life would not be very polite!”

The dark clouds appeared to be passing us by. In fact, the sun began to shine briefly.

And then I believe I heard cheering coming from our garden plants as sprinkles began to fall.

The sprinkles turned to a steady rain and then it reached a gully washing phase.

Two and a quarter inches of rain later I knew I did not need to go in search of the syphoning motor and 500 feet of hose!

We’ll save Plan C for another year. Lake Traverse’s ability to split storms still remains a hypothesis only and my science reputation so far remains unscathed.

Life is good. 🙂

Until next time.