A Small Disaster

Once I had a garden that flooded one black night. The water came from the stream just beyond the barbwire, creeping across the field in the dark in a slithery manner. I stood in the yard with my husband and listened; it was so dark that night, we couldn't see the water reflecting moonlight, but I suppose we had a flashlight and we aimed it at the shiny predator moving slowly toward the dry side yard where we stood worrying. That was the only flood I've been around, and it wasn't a raging thing, it was a creek after all that had gotten jammed up with sticks and limbs and small logs. We'd stood by it one day while walking, taking in the debris and thinking nothing of it. We were young, in our late twenties. It was the oil embargo of the late 70s. We had never been in a flood. Really, we were city kids trying our hand at country life.

The flood had been more severe earlier on in that property's history. Once We'd had our own flood, then we heard about it from a neighbor. It had taken off the top soil of our garden, that is why the soil was bad, the friend said. She rode cut horses. She was the one who herded the cattle out of my garden the day they broke down the fence. She wore cowboy boots and walked a little bowlegged. She took up pottery because of me and became my competitor. Eventual we were no longer friends.

Well, that has nothing to do with lost top soil. When the wind blows on the Palouse, the topsoil blows away. Top soil can't be replaced, well not in rolling hills of acreage that is. However, it can in a tiny plot like I have. I could have someone haul in topsoil. A neighbor said my current plot was scraped clean of topsoil because the lot was sloped and they scraped it from the top to the bottom to make it level. That explains why the bottom plots are so lush So topsoil—come hither. Come to me lover.

It's raining today. I'm still hacking, so even though my friend left potting soil on my plot, I won't be there to do anything about it. This is a day for resting.

Peace, Flower Power