Rain, Maybe

I just walked in the house from taking the dogs out in the field, and all three of us are actually wet.  Well, maybe only moist.  But after two and a half weeks without rain, every drop counts.

Mind you, things are still green around here--it takes a while to use up the spring melt.  But yesterday the woods gave off that sweet, dry Mediterranean smell that would have made a nightingale not sound out of place.  In Vermont, however, a dry spell this early in the season does not bode well for fields and farms, flowers and wells.

I have a little fixation on wells, having spent my young adult years trying to coexist with a slow one.  I learned to do no more than one load of wash on any given day, and to turn off the shower while I soaped myself, and to never, ever water the garden or the grass.  But the Christmas when, having just placed turkey and trimmings in front of twelve house guests, I went to wash my hands and heard that fatal "shhhhhh" come drily out of the faucet ranks as one of the low points of my life.

Hence my over-vigilance about rainfall and water tables and wells.  As soon as we have a couple of dry days I go into water conservation mode.  I water the vegetables with a watering can instead of a hose.  I turn the water off while brushing my teeth.  And while I cook, I fill a bowl with water and rinse my fingers in it rather than under the faucet.  When I'm done I throw the contents of the bowl into the pond, to replenish it.  Need I say that our toilet tanks are equipped with water-saving quart jars year round?

So far, our Vermont well has never failed us, but who knows what lies ahead in this era of morphing climate?  Like, for instance, right now the rain has stopped.  The patio is dry again and the hens have come out to hunt for whatever micro-fauna emerge after a shower.  My hopes are dashed. The drought is not averted.  It will be sad to watch the gardens slowly die, the Holsteins in the fields grow gaunt and skeletal...

But wait!  The hens just ran inside!  It's sprinkling again, and the frog in the pond just croaked with joy.  And so did I.

Burnt Offerings

I have been ireading Mary Renault's retelling of the Theseus legend, The King Must Die and The Bull From The Sea.  I am not a classicist of either the historical or literary kind, but I'm enjoying these books a lot.  For one thing, it's fun meeting again, in different circumstances, characters I remember from 16th and 17th French literature (that girl, Ariadne's little sister, must be Phaedra, Theseus's future wife, who is going to fall in love with her stepson...).Also, Renault weaves the light, the smells, the landscape, the flora and fauna so tightly into her story, that there is never that moment when you know you're in for an injection of "local color," as happens with many historical novels.

I am struck by the interactive quality of the human characters' relationship with the gods. Like a college student texting his parents at the drop of a hat, Theseus constantly begs favors of Neptune, asks his advice, complains that he is being badly treated.  And he knows how to get on the god's good side, something he and his fellow Hellenes do by offering sacrifices. 

The sacrifices are of living beings, and the best ones are highly valued living beings.  If a Hellene was feeling guilty, he might kill a chicken--or if he was very guilty, a goat--and feel much better.  If he was grateful for a military victory, a bull would be the thing to slaughter.  To save the harvest he might offer a favorite wolfhound, or the best stallion of the herd.  For luck in battle, a virgin princess.  And just on general principles, some tribes annually sacrificed their king.

As our drought persists, and no rain is forecast, I realize that to the Ancients this situation would have had an obvious answer:  I should sacrifice something--rather, someone--to appease the gods and save my garden.  If I were a 4th century BCE Hellene, I would be looking around right now, thinking, a hen?  Maybe one of the older ones that aren't laying much?  But the gods would turn up their noses at that.  They know a spent layer when they see one.

For the Olympians, a chicken is small change.  If I really want rain, I should get serious.  So, who else is there?  Other than my husband (who should be saved for something like a Martian invasion, in which case I'd sacrifice myself right along with him), that leaves the dogs.  Which one could I stand to part with, and most importantly, which one would appease the gods, and bring rain?  Would Lexi be too old, or would she please the Goddess in her Crone aspect?  Artemis, I know, would like swift-footed Wolfie, but Bisou would have to go to Aphrodite (not that I would trust Aphrodite to remember to send rain).

Where am I going with this, besides getting myself upset?  I am not a 4th century BCE Hellene.  I am not sacrificing my dogs.  And if the garden fails, there is always the supermarket. 

Even so, I do envy those old Hellenes their familiar day-to-day relationship with the gods.  How nice to have somebody who would send you signs, who would get angry but then forgive you, and whom you could ask for stuff.  Somebody to give you permission to go into battle with  no second thoughts ("If God be with us," as another tribe put it, "who can be against us?").

Yes, I know, it's dangerous, listening to gods.  That's why we don't listen to them anymore.  Now instead we listen to Reason, that other dicey voice.  But at least I get to keep my dogs.

Deep Blue, Dull Green

If it doesn't rain soon I'll have to change the name of this blog to My Brown Vermont.

We're having a terrific heat wave (highs of 94F) and it hasn't rained in quite a while.  The usual values of earth and sky around here (bright green vegetation, muted sky) are now reversed:  we havedeep blue skies and dull green vegetation.  It looks like the Mediterranean.  Speaking of which, the last time I was in Spain it was a very wet summer, and gardeners complained that it was ruining their gardens, where everything is planned with an eye to drought resistance.

But that is not the case in Vermont, and even my intensively planted garden is showing signs of stress, and betraying my aversion to watering.  The tomato vines have been dead for a while, but they're full of ripening tomatoes that I must remember to harvest tomorrow morning before it gets hot.  I broke down and watered the beans yesterday, because even though the plants looked fine they weren't setting fruit as fast as they should be at this time of year.  While I was at it I gave the zucchini some water too, in case it still had some life in it.  Amazingly, the kale, chard, eggplants and peppers are unaffected, though I may have to give them a drink in the next couple of days.

Why do I dislike watering so much?  Part of it has to do with dragging the hose around, trying to keep it from knocking down plants, and getting water and mud all over myself.  Part of it is that I get antsy just standing there holding the hose, wondering if I've watered enough yet.  But the main reason is that I'm always afraid that our well will run out of water.

I experienced the waywardness of wells at an impressionable age (30 or so) when we bought our first house in the country.  That well was forever running dry and having to "recover" for long periods, like some 19th century neurasthenic. I could not wash more than one load of laundry a day.  Watering the garden was out of the question.  And if company came to stay, it was axiomatic that we would run out of water in the first 48 hours.

Unlike that one, our present well is faithful and true.  In the five years we have lived here, with sometimes ten people in the house for days at a time, it has never failed us.  It gives delicious-tasting water, so cold that in hot weather we have to put special trays under the toilet tanks so the condensation won't rot the floors.

Still, you never know.  Better safe than sorry.  A stitch in time, and all that.  With these precepts in mind, yesterday I went into water-conservation mode.  I persuaded my husband to adjust the water level in the toilet tanks so they don't use three gallons of water with every flush.  I saved the water from freezing some beans--between the boiling and the cooling baths this came to almost a couple of gallons--and gave it to the hostas in front of the house.  These are the big-leaved kind of hostas that look like something from outer space.  They are super-mulched but were looking dry, so they got the bean water.

Of course hostas look kind of dry at the end of even a wet summer, but how am I to know the difference between a hosta that is dying of thirst and one that is merely tired of summer and wishing for fall?  I have the same dilemma with my two little apple trees.  They each have a number of fat apples ripening nicely, but the foliage looks rather dull.  Should I water them?  I can't bear the thought of them languishing before my very eyes, so I guess I'll put the hose at their feet tonight, and let it drip for an hour.

The only thing that is prospering right now is the lavender, which thinks it's been transplanted to a tawny hillside between an olive grove and the wine-dark sea, and from sheer joy has burst into a mass of late-season blooms.