Do You Think the Rain Will Hurt the Rhubarb?

A few words on the Weather, Progress, and God

“Everybody always talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”

-Mark Twain

Rain. Finally, rain.

I’m glad for the flowers and bees, and our nearly-empty cistern, but after a month with little rain, I’m mostly glad to be corralled under a roof and made to sit and listen to its pattering. The now surging stream carries with it dirt made by the passing of millennia, countless cycles of life and death. I say bye to it on its journey back to the sea.

As a topic of discussion, weather is to most people a polite way to talk about nothing, or a way to guide a conversation that’s venturing into unsafe waters. When a conversation veered towards something unseemly, my Grandmother used to ask, “My, do you think the rain will hurt the rhubarb?”

To the uninitiated, there’s only good weather and bad weather. When your livelihood depends on the sun, clouds, rain, snow, and wind, it takes on a whole new dimension. To the farmer or gardener, there is endless fodder for conversation on the nuances of each season and its influence on the growth of the plants and health of the animals that sustain us all.

Growers have long memories. I’ve learned this by listening to the old-timers sipping beers at the brewery, or chatting, leaned up against the stone spring where I collect our drinking water. Every year is deemed a record-breaking something or other. Last year was the coldest September in twenty-five years here in Bohemia, according to Lucie’s grandmother. I’ll take her word for it. She can rattle off the price of potatoes to the penny for the last three decades. We’ve spent many pleasant Sunday afternoons discussing the season’s weather, and potatoes.

The timing of dropping seeds in the ground depends on Spring weather, which is as dependable as a drug dealer. A dry March turned into an unseasonably warm April. Buds and blooms sprung forth weeks earlier than usual, only for a frost to strike in mid-April, which decimated the fruits and flowers that were already well on their way. Many tears were shed among farmers, gardeners, and vignerons across Central Europe. For most people entirely blind to agriculture, living in climate controlled conditions, the cold snap simply means very expensive fruits and nuts come summer and fall, assuming trucks and ships are still running. If our global transportation infrastructure is harmed or impeded, it will mean no fruits or nuts at all.

Perhaps one of the greatest joys of growing your own food is the feeling of agency. So much of modern life is so meticulously managed for us through apps, algorithms, and HR policies, and so much of the ‘work’ being done shows no material results at the end of the day.

What got me into gardening was the amazement, and yes, empowerment, that comes with being able to grow your own food. We make most of our living by farming for around thirty families who live within walking distance. Many things that we need, we trade for with food we grow. No money is paid in taxes for bombs or bureaucrats. That’s certainly not the reason to start or keep farming, but it’s a good one.

The garden and the gardener also have defined limits. The strength of the gardener, space, borders, access to water, seeds, fertile soil, and the need to rest. And then there is what’s beyond our control, the weather.

That’s not to say we humans don’t affect the weather. Clear-cutting vast swaths of old growth forest and paving it with concrete certainly affects the weather of a region. But to affect something and to control it are two different things. I can affect the speed at which I make compost by introducing nitrogen-rich materials like chicken manure, but the proliferation of life and the alchemy that transpires to transform life into death, and back into life again, is beyond my control or understanding. And I’m alright with that. In fact, it fills me with awe.