AROUND
THE KITCHEN TABLE
Maureen
Weber
Making
way for ducklings, and other benefits of rain
It’s raining.
So, you say. It hardly rains
on the prairies. Look it up on Wikipedia: it provides an explanation
for why it seldom rains here.
This year there will be an asterisk. In the last two months we’ve
had more than 64 centimetres of rain. Rather, twenty-five inches (and
counting). To put it into perspective, during the same two-month period
last year, we had one inch. Last year there was talk of an impending
drought.
I dislike rain.
Twenty-five inches means farmers can’t get into their fields to
seed because of the mud. What seeding was done before the deluge is
likely going to rot.
In southern Saskatchewan some highways are closed because of flooding.
There’s a mini-Niagara Falls roaring over a cavern that used to
be the TransCanada near Maple Creek. Dustbowl country. Even here, some
roads are under water.
But there’s more. Twenty-five inches has robbed us of spring blossoms
on the trees because they got pounded off before bees even had a chance
to get at them. It is enough to make you believe you need glasses, because
you are always looking out of streaky windows. And that you’re
colour blind because all you see is grey and green. Green trees, green,
spongy grass, green moss on the sidewalk. Shaggy grey sky.
Twenty-five inches is enough to make your son, who is afraid of heights,
get up onto the rooftop to clear the downspout of the eavestrough because
of the waterfall outside our kitchen window.
Formerly dry basements are flooding.
Twenty-five inches is enough to merge three sloughs into one. I saw
a vehicle go through that slough. It looked like a miracle: Christ driving
on water. A road was beneath, but you couldn’t see it. Water of
biblical proportions, but if you drive out in faith, you won’t
sink. (I’m more the cautious type, though.)
They say the muskrat population will explode. Maybe the exploding mosquito
population will feed on them, and not me.
I know the earthworm population has exploded, because they’re
preventing my daughter from transplanting cherry seedlings at her summer
job. The roots are full of them. This indoor girl says she can handle
the hummingbird-sized bees, the flies that mate on the wall of the shed,
and the ground squirrel that follows her everywhere. But she hides from
the worms. Too many of them pulsing, writhing, expanding and contracting,
slimy, raw. Scoleciphobia
Twenty-five inches is enough to make the cats throw up in my shoes.
New ones. My husband says that’s because I have too many
pairs, but I know it’s because of the rain.
Or perhaps the cats are giving me a message about how there are certain
things you can do nothing to change, and to lament is to waste energy
better spent on more worthwhile endeavours. I have smart cats.
The Beatles in their song Rain concur: “I can show you that
when it starts to rain / (When the rain comes down) / Everything’s
the same / (When the rain comes down).”
There’s probably another way of looking at rain.
Twenty-five inches means Old Mr. Crow has been spending more time outside
my office window pulling up earthworms. I’d like to put him in
touch with my daughter. Unfortunately, he never stays around long enough
for a conversation — I want to ask him how my dad is, because
they once knew each other.
Twenty-five inches is enough to cause kids who are home for the summer
to linger over a meal, shift to the living room afterward and keep talking.
Relaxed, unguarded moments with grown children are a break in the clouds.
Twenty-five inches is a holiday from obligation to weed, to mow, to
plant flowers, to do housework (I admit this is a stretch). I’m
not a gardener, but there was a four-day rainless window recently which
left me with no excuse not to buy flowers to fill a motley assortment
of boxes and pots. Why did I resist? Because if you buy too many, how
do you make the decision about what to do with the ones you have no
room for? Do you pull them out of their cells immediately, or leave
them there to die a slow, rootbound death? Their shrivelled carcasses
are on your conscience. You might say they’re only plants after
all, but you wouldn’t if you could see how sturdy and bright they
become once they have space.
I managed to plant every one. Well, I told the mums they may be a little
crowded in their terra cotta pot, but it was better than the alternative.
Now, like watching over a sleeping infant to make sure she’s still
breathing, I can’t keep my eyes off them. And I’ve hardly
had to water, because of the rain.
Twenty-five inches of rain means that you can see a mother duck lead
her 11 ducklings across a city street. By the time I parked my car to
have a closer look, the wee birds were splashing about in a puddle by
the sidewalk. Wise mother duck led them away from me, but she chose
to jump up a high curb, and when her babies tried to follow, urgently
jumping, flapping and cheeping, without success, she came down again
and found a more accessible route to, I assume, a nearby golf course.
The classic Make Way for Ducklings won the Caldecott medal for illustration
in 1942. I’ve had to wait my whole life to see the real thing.
“Rain, I don’t mind / Shine, the weather’s fine
. . . It’s just a state of mind
. . .”
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