It is that time… water/mow….water/mow, but I do love the summer months. Now it is only April but where I live in the Southeast corner of Colorado it is close to summer. The trees have green buds, the grass is green, and the bushes are coming out of their winter rest. I have to tell you though that this year is a bit discouraging due to several things. The wind has been intense this spring and we have been in a drought since the summer of 1999 when we had our last measurable rain. We actually lost our big cottonwood tree that year due to too much rain.

We have neighbors across the street to the West who have neglected their yard until it is bare ground and so when the wind blows from the West, it is a dirt storm and it blows into our yard and our screened in porch and you honestly can’t keep up with it. The dirt has covered our corner that had lovely rock in it because we couldn’t grow grass there, guess we won’t grow any rock now either. Did you know that more women committed suicide in the dust bowl days than any other time in our history? Such despair they must have suffered.

I keep trying my best. I water as much as I can, especially the trees and the bushes (water is expensive), I pull weeds from the flower garden, mow the lawn, vacuum the porch and the swing and as I am doing that I have my little portable CD with ear plugs going just as loud as I dare (don’t want to go deaf you know). Tonight I was listening to a CD of hymns and was reminded of His care while singing “His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me”. I thought of the rain that we need so desperately and truly did wonder why it hasn’t been His will for the last few years to send rain upon the land. It may not be His will again this year, we don’t know and it is foolish to question why. However, in faith we can pray and ask that He would:

“Causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth” (Psalm 104:14)

Deo Valente, of course!