For those of us who come from farming and gardening backgrounds, concern about the weather is always with us. I suppose that's why we talk so much about the weather. For some of us, a phone conversation may go like this -- "Hi, how're you doing?" (response) "How's the weather where you are? Are you getting any rain?"
Two farmers are having coffee at the Blackhawk Grill. If they are not talking about the cattle markets, they may get around to the weather. Do you think its ever going to rain? Or, do you think it'll ever stop raining? We're concerned about extreme weather, of course, tornadoes, hail or damaging straight winds. But many of our anxieties center on rain -- will we get enough? Will we get too much?
Lately we are getting more rain than most of us want. Right now I can't do my garden work. The ground is too soggy. My lawn needs mowing, but everything is all wet and squishy. Texas has been in the news for several days with severe flooding. Even some parts of Texas that have been under a drought have now more than caught up on their rainfall and are suffering from too much rain. I haven't heard the latest on the California drought. Too bad we can't send some of our excess rain out to California.
As with the way our general circumstances of life go, the rains never seem to come in an ideal pattern. We rarely ever get our rains coming just right. Usually we have too little rain, or too much, or too late, or too early, or coming at times which help in one way but cause a problem in another. When I think either of "now" or of "back then," things haven't changed that much through the years, our rains have always been both a blessing and a bane. Since we can't schedule them to fit the times we want them, we pretty much have to be grateful for them when we get them, and to be glad sometimes when they go away. We certainly can't do without them. But, as with other examples, too much of a good thing may not be so good.
As long as I can remember, our little Otter Creek, which runs through our farm north of Pea Ridge, has at times been transformed by the too much rain from a normal, placid little trickling stream into a wide, raging torrent, capable of carrying big trees and other debris in its fast-moving flood waters. But things have changed somewhat on Otter Creek as Pea Ridge has grown. It was once common that our little creek would dry up during the hot summer months. I haven't seen that happen in several years now. More water than ever is flowing into Otter Creek, coming from our city's drains, runoff and waste water systems. Otter Creek, for the most part, doesn't go dry like it once did. Of course, we haven't had really severe drought conditions lately to test it. But since we have the city waste water system emptying into Otter Creek, and since we have a growing number of houses and businesses, parking lots, and paved streets, it stands to reason that we have more waste water entering the system, and we have more and more runoff water to be handled by our drainage ditches and streams.
In recent years, I have been moved to think more about what happens to materials we use after we "get rid of them." For example, when we toss something in the trash, and our trash service truck picks up our trash at the curb, we commonly just think of it as "gone." As we used to say in Ozark speech, we're "shud of it." But it doesn't really go away once we're personally "shud of it." It goes somewhere next along the line of its existence. In the same way, our water doesn't just go away once it goes down the drain. We may be personally "shud of it" but it is going somewhere. It is not going out of existence. Someone else may have to deal with it on down the line. Thinking along this line has led me to a much greater appreciation of our little Otter Creek as part of our water management system. Other little-noticed local streams are tributaries which bring water into Otter Creek when we have rain runoff from the town itself, or when water drains from the farms all around the larger ridge and plateau on which our community lies.
Thinking this way also has led me to consider what conditions we are creating or perpetuating when we send our trash on its way, or when we send our "used" water down the drains and down the creek. On our farm we have had a long-term problem of creek bank erosion. It becomes a threat to the house site, to the highway, and to our farm buildings and pastureland. So, inasmuch as possible, we'd like to limit the flooding on Otter Creek. All measures are helpful which cause more rainfall to soak into the ground where it falls. Also, like the flood-control dams on our rivers, retaining pools related to our parking lots, and strategically placed farm ponds may slow the rate at which water flows into our streams. thereby lessening the flooding.
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Editor's note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Editorial on 06/03/2015