Do you think it's gonna' rain?"

I'm trying to think if there was ever a time in my lifetime when we weren't talking about how unusual our weather is in Arkansas. Probably there was never a time when the weather, with all its twists and turns, was not a reliable topic of conversation, especially among farm people. My experience of growing up in the 1940s and 1950s led me to assume that July and August could be expected to be hot and dry, sometimes very hot and very dry. During the summer of 1947, our family took a major, two-month trip to the west coast, visiting relatives all the way up and down the coast from Los Angeles, Calif., to Walla Walla, Wash. When we rolled into home on the farm in August, I was amazed to see that no green grass was left growing on our farm. Everything was dry and brown. Otter Creek, which we relied on for water for the cows, was almost dry. Of course, that was rather usual for August. Sometimes we had either to drive our herd of cows down to the spring on the Day farm north of us, or to haul water from the spring to water the cows.

These days, since Pea Ridge has grown so much, and has momentously increased the amount of water which drains into Otter Creek, the creek rarely runs dry anymore. Still, we expect that the time for rain showers is in April, and May, and maybe June. We don't normally have showers to speak of in July. But, this year, as usual, the summer weather has had unusual things for us. It has been hot, and humid, as per normal, but we keep getting these pop-up showers, which can turn into major downpours, and just a couple of weeks ago, the big rain all around Pea Ridge put Otter Creek over its banks -- in July no less! I don't ever recall seeing Otter Creek flooding in July, but it happened in 2016, in July. I've also noted, from talking with some of the crews who mow lawns around the area, that they are often amazed at how the grass keeps growing, and growing, and growing, this year. By August of each year, I usually try to go to at least an every-two-weeks schedule for mowing my lawn. This year, even through July, if I don't mow each week, I almost need to bale it. It gets tall like a hay crop. I always look forward to "laying by" my lawn grass. "Laying by the crop" is an old expression coming from raising corn on the farm. During the early part of the year, you plow and prepare and plant and cultivate, then, as the corn gets too tall for the cultivator, you "lay by," and wait for it to mature until harvest time. I love to"lay by" my lawn grass. I can't understand my friends who water their lawns so they can keep mowing their grass.

Many years have passed since the general farming era in our community, when farmers in general would be laying by their corn crops this time of year. One could say that that era began changing soon after the Civil War, when farmers in our area began discovering that they could make good with apple orchards. By the 1880s, apple orchards were being established everywhere in Benton and Washington counties. The railroads were being built to transport apples all over the country from our local orchards. General farming began to give way to specialty farms. But, even with that trend, general farming continued in our area throughout the era of horse farming, and overlapped with the coming of farm tractors and machine farming. We ourselves were basically general farmers until the mid-1950s, when we began specializing in the dairy. When my grandparents moved to Pea Ridge in the late 1920s, they were actually returning to general farming, having failed to thrive in the apple business in the Garfield area. By 1929, the apple orchards in our area were struggling; what with the scale disease, and bugs, and worms, and competition from Washington State.

I can easily remember when nearly all our neighbors made nearly all their living on small general farms. Most of us had a few milking cows, a small flock of laying hens, a team of horses, a few hogs, a large garden for growing much of our food, and hay fields, pastures, fields of corn and oats. We normally didn't have much money, but we normally didn't do without, since we produced much of what we needed to survive. We had some money coming in from selling milk and eggs, occasionally selling a few steers on the market, and maybe selling some extra hay or corn. These days, I note that many families like living on small farms, and even keep a few horses and cattle, but very few actually make most of their living on the farm. Most families these days have off-the-farm occupations to raise an income to live off of, while carrying on a bit of farming because they like the small farm way of life. When you have to do with farming in the Ozarks, you will probably become accustomed to conversations which begin with, "Do ye reckon it's gonna rain any time soon?"

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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. The opinions expressed are those of the author. He can be contacted by e-mail at joe369@century tel.net, or call 621-1621.

General News on 08/10/2016