W


e have emptied the 5-inch capacity rain gauge four times now. All four times, it has been


overfull. On August 30, a grandson takes me on a canoe


ride on pasturelands now under 15 feet of water. Te hay meadow I have watched for months is under water. We paddle toward the place where the hay has been stacked. I am eager to see how high the water has gotten on them. We see no evidence of stacked bales of hay. Perspective changes when the familiar landmarks are nonexistent. I may not be looking in the right place.


S S


eptember 1, the water is receding a bit. We canoe through the bottom again. Te hay is no longer


stacked on the high berm. Where can it be? And then we spot it. Bales 5 feet in diameter, tops visible just above the water, litter the river bottom as far as a half mile away. All the waiting and watching and working now sits, strewn throughout the pasture, under pecan trees, soaking wet.


eptember 2, a drone camera shows the unmoved cattle did find high ground atop a gravel pit


hill. Not one is lost. All the cows are squeezed into too-little acreage. Hay must be brought in from another place and thrown to cows – some thrown from a boat, some from a trailer. September 5, at last we can drive into the


river bottom. Te road is full of puddles. Water birds forage in them and in the muddy, low water places. Te river rushes out by way of the no-longer- dry creek bed, as fiercely as it rushed in.


O


ne hundred bales of hay which, pushed from their high perch by


rushing water, litter the landscape. And oh, the stench of dead fish,


and soaked, rotting grasses and wood. Soon, the river bottom is filled


… not with water, but with acrid smoke. Te bales must be burned. If cattle eat the moldy hay, the unborn


calves will be stillborn. All the watching and waiting and


working has been for naught. Ten, less than a month aſter the


flood waters have receded, the hay meadow is bright green. Every day, the grass grows taller, faster than before. Te silt leſt by the river’s water has provided nutrients and fertilizer


which hasten growth. We notice in surrounding fields,


though they had taken on life aſter the flood, the grass is turning brown. A closer look reveals a worst-possible scenario. Army worms. Te ground is alive with them. Tey are eating every bit of green to the root. In two days, acres and acres of grassland are


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January-February-March 2021 • WorshipArts • UMFellowship.org


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