forty days, no rain

forty days, no rain,

creek bed littered with dead leaves,

one small water hole

Went for a walk this evening, the first time in more than a moon. Met some neighbors also out for a stroll in the cool air, the first break we've had since the long heat wave began. Of course the subject is the weather, forty days and forty nights with no rain, the longest hot dry spell since 1955, and that coming hard on the heels of the record run of rain and flooding. We did have one storm a few nights ago, but only half an inch of rain and lots of branches down from the wind. Not enough to erase the wide cracks in the ground. The drought is starting to affect the trees, their leaves curling inward, showing their lighter undersides, the way they do when a storm is brewing, only there's no sign of rain. Some of the pines have turned brown and died, from too much rain or too little, hard to say. And some white oaks have died, the leaves all turning brown overnight. Sounds like that beetle that bores under the bark and infects the tree with a fungus. After we go our separate ways, I walk down to the creek. The last time I came this way I sank to the top of my rubber boots in mud. Now the creek is dry, littered with dead leaves, only a few small water holes. This overhanging tree looks like it's bending down for a drink from a shrinking pool hugging its roots.

reflection of tree

reflection of tree

leaning over the flooding

creek after the storm

Another thunderstorm. More flood warnings in central and southeast Iowa. Fortunately, we do not live close to a river, and our usually tranquil Pilgrim Creek lies way at the bottom of the wooded hills. This tree has been leaning out from the bank for a long time, all of its limbs growing upward toward the light, like fingers raised in praise of the sun, doubled by their reflection in the water. With the flooding, the base of the trunk is now submerged a couple of feet under muddy water. The fast-moving current continues to erode the bank, and some day the roots of the tree will be washed free and the heavy trunk will fall across the creek. If the tree is not utterly uprooted, it will continue to grow in that fallen position, its arms still upraised, its trunk a living bridge for light-footed creatures to cross over.

an ancient oak felled

an ancient oak felled

by wind, roots rotted,

green leaves withering

This oak stood for over a century, next to its companion, an erratic granite boulder left behind by a glacier. The tall tree withstood many a storm. It held on through ice that broke other trees. This spring, as it had done for countless spring times, it put forth fresh green leaves all along its lofty branches. Then one morning a high wind bowled over the entire tree, snapping it off at the base. The heavy oak crashed onto a concrete building housing the steam generator at Maharishi University. The trunk fractured, but the building, solid as a bunker, withstood the blow. Now John is cutting off the branches with a chain saw to use for firewood. The Amish will come to haul away the thick trunk to mill into posts and beams for a barn that will stand another century or more. The withered leaves and twigs will be chopped up into mulch for paths around campus. Perhaps the children at Maharishi School will plant a sapling oak in the hole left by the roots of its ancestor, next to the boulder bearing remnants of paint from some prankster in the previous century.