To Believe in Abundance

I should be more careful what I ask for.  I just might get it. 

“Stop!” I begged.  “Please stop!” 

And they did.   Finally.   Gratefully.  They did.    The rains finally stopped.   But not until all records were smashed.  12 inches above normal March through May.    Linda’s brother, and his fellow farmers, didn’t get all fields planted.  A first according to the old timers. 

What no one knew is that someone had now turned the faucet off.  The ground would crack.  Dust would smother the roadside trees.  Crops, drowned in the spring, would eventually wither.  It wouldn’t rain again, not a really good soaking rain, for the remainder of the summer.   

Not until last Saturday night.  Hallelujah we got an inch.  A whole, blessed inch.  Oh to watch the birds on Sunday morning.  So happy!  Bluebirds zigging and zagging, splashing when they could. 

And just as buoyant, Linda and I.  “The shed tank is nearly full again!”  Meaning the above ground 250 gallon tank which catches rainwater off the shed roof.  Our irrigation source!  Now down to our last few drops, we were rationing.  Not a pretty sight for our river birch, Kentucky coffee tree and especially the poor witch hazel.  Parched and burnt she seemed in the dusty soil. 

So I’m ordering two 200 gallon catchment tanks to tuck behind the shed and planning a 500 gallon “pond” to harvest rain off the yoga loft roof, the only section not drained by our 5400 gallon household cistern.  How silly of me, I finally realized.  There’s no shortage of rain, only a shortage of imagination. 

Or perhaps I’d experienced a shortage of belief, belief in the abundance.   And I’d just failed to harvest that abundance.   Next year we’ll harvest 5 times the water we caught this year.  And why not? 

 If I’d only paid more attention to the pond.  He fills to overflowing every spring, then drains down in the summer.  But never, not ever even close, to running out.    The pond believes in the abundance. 

I’m getting there.