The Rain on Kapiti Plain

There's a story my parents used to read to me when I was kid, and for the past few months as the Driftless suffers through a burning drought, parts of it have been running through my head. 

This is what everything looks like here now, minus the African wildlife and looming clouds.

It's called Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain, and it's about a herdsman who shoots down the rain with an eagle feather-laden arrow and saves the animals (including his herd of cattle) of Kapiti Plain from a horrible drought.  The link takes you to the old Reading Rainbow version with James Earl Jones narrating, which makes it way cooler than anything else you're going to hear today.

Stifling heat, humidity, and dry conditions are fairly common in my home state of Kansas.  In fact, we even beat Death Valley at one point this summer.  So when my parents came to visit the second week of July, it was as if they had never left Kansas.

Well...almost like they'd never left.

We all know I could write paragraphs (pages, novels, epics, etc.) about how much I love my close-knit family, so I'll sum up my feelings on their visit:  It was awesome.  It always is. 

They just bring out the best in me.

During my parents' visit, one thing was certain: we needed to forget about the drought for awhile.  Recreating my previous journey, I returned to Heritage Farm with two more people in tow.  And it was even better than I had remembered it.

One of the many gardens next to the Visitor Center and barn.

Five Color Silverbeet Swiss Chard (which WILL be in my garden next year!)

A bloomin' onion, literally. 

Just a little pollination going on...

Deliciousness.

The orchard we hiked to turned out to be blocked off by a high chain link fence. 
Thank goodness for zoom.

Whenever my parents visit, I tend to get nostalgic for when my sister and I were kids, and we would come up to Wisconsin to see my aunt and uncle and cousins.  The most vivid memories are the ones with all of my cousins crowded around my aunt and uncle's kitchen table, everyone talking at once, shouting jokes, laughing with abandon, the whole kitchen alive.  I remember epic games of Uno that required four decks of cards and left us all hoarse the next day.  That was when I first saw my dad as the storyteller he is, a trade he passed on to his children. 

But Time goes on whether we want it to or not, and my cousins grew up and grew out of the house, having families and kitchen tables of their own.  Instead of meeting at one central table, there is a constant flux of people through everyone's houses, and everyone's kitchens are fair game.

These days, when my parents come to visit, and we go see my aunt and uncle, the kitchen and its table are smaller, there are fewer visitors, but there are just as many jokes and stories flying back and forth.  The kitchen is no less crowded with people stopping by and walking in the back door (front doors and knocking are for strangers).  And for every person who pops in, they are still met with shouted greetings, a scramble for another chair, and demands that they sit and visit for awhile.

All too soon, the indescribable comfort of having my parents in the same town came to an end.

On the morning of my parents' departure, we met up for breakfast at Simply's, everyone's favorite cafe in town.  The air was already heavy with humidity, and I was dreading having to put on my polyester-wood blend ranger pants for work later that day.  Following our family rule of "Everyone order something different so we can all try it," we each began devouring a different combination of eggs, cheese, fresh baked bread, and fresh veggies. 

Then, it happened. 

My mother's surprised voice caught us all off guard as she stared out the window.  "It's raining!!" 

Sure enough, someone had shot an arrow into the big, black cloud that shadowed the plain, and brought the rain to our Kapiti Plain.

There wasn't much else to do but go and stand in it. 

And so it happened that instead of the long, melancholy goodbye hugs where we try to put off the inevitable, we ran across the street to our cars through the rain, laughing as we embraced each other, and drove our separate directions.  One car headed south, the other east, but both keeping the other in view as long as the sheets of rain would allow.