Rain Gauge

Water is life.  What would you do if you turned on your water faucet and nothing came out?  For a month?

That’s the way we farmers feel in a drought.  This summer we’ve had two significant droughts; one was in the spring (in April) and the other was in July.  We can count on at least one drought four years out of five.

Outside the back door of our house is a rain gauge.  Do you have one at your house?  It’s okay if you don’t; this isn’t a judgment call.  Nonfarmers seldom have rain gauges out—unless you’re a weather watcher.

This little instrument is one of the most obvious points of contrast between a farmer and non-farmer mentality.  In the summer, few things are as welcome as big black thunderheads showing up on the southwest horizon.  Our hearts leap for joy as big raindrops descend.

Whether we’re in the field, the barn, or the house, summer rains are always welcome.  Old-timers around here say “We’re always one thunderstorm away from a drought.”  

When the sun bears down and the temperature soars into the 90s, just a few days can make the difference between grass growing well and not growing at all.  And when you depend on grass for your livelihood, and the herd of cows depends on the grass for their sustenance, that’s a big deal.

As I age, I’m more interested in how people think and what we think about.  

How we live and what we do shapes our thinking.  What we see and how we interact with everything and everyone creates a thought roadmap - if you will.  Obviously, if we’re thinking about one thing, we can’t think about something else.

If I’m thinking about rain, for example, I’m not thinking about the upcoming presidential election.  If I’m thinking about soil moisture, I’m not thinking about the war in Ukraine.  

As a farmer, I’m borderline obsessed with water.  I’m convinced that non-farmers barely devote any time to water.  That’s not an indictment; it’s just a natural result of not interacting with it as dependently and viscerally. But just thinking about water does not create action.  

Most farmers share this level of thought about water and rain but, here at Polyface, we’ve taken strategic action steps to ease the highs and lows.  

The first thing is building organic matter (OM) in the soil.  Just 1 percent OM holds 20,000 gallons of water per acre.  In the United States, farmland has gone from about 7 percent OM in the original pre-Europeanization to less than 2 percent today.

Across the landscape, that’s a lot of lost water holding capacity.  In the soil, OM is like a sponge.  Here at Polyface, we’ve gone from 1 percent OM in 1961 to a bit more than 8 percent today, which is an increase of 7 percent, multiplied by 20,000 gallons of capacity per acre, which is 140,000 gallons of water per acre we can hold today that we couldn’t when we arrived.  This means the shoulders of droughts—going in and coming out—are more rounded.  The grass grows longer in dry times and comes back quicker when it rains.

The second thing we do is build ponds to hold surface runoff.  Worldwide, about one-third of raindrops run off because they either come too fast for soil absorption or too much at once for the soil to absorb. Obviously, with high OM, the soil can absorb much more, which reduces flooding.  The other option is to become a beaver, building ponds to inventory flood water and dispense hydration gently during drought.

Historically, roughly 8 percent of North America was water—primarily from beaver ponds.  With 200 million beavers working diligently, these ponds were everywhere.  Today, less than 4 percent of North America is water, even with all the lake construction of the last century.  Here at Polyface, we’ve built some 20 ponds over the years, and continue to do so, trying to reach that 8 percent water ratio of pre-European days.

Impounding surface runoff, holding those raindrops high on the landscape, does not rob downstream folks of water.  By definition, surface runoff indicates the cup of the commons is full and running over.  Holding that water high on the landscape reduces flooding on low ground and maintains base flow for aquifer recharge and springs, as well as evapotranspiration function for good cloud formation and hydrologic cycling during dry times.  That’s a mouthful, but there’s a reason why North America produced more food 500 years ago than it does today, even with tractors, chemical fertilizers, and factory farms.

Worldwide, about one-third of all raindrops become surface runoff.  That means here in the mid-Atlantic region with 33 inches of annual rainfall, 11 of those inches become surface runoff.  One acre-inch of water is 30,000 gallons, so 11 inches is 330,000 gallons per acre per year.  That’s a lot of water lost in big rain events and snow melt.  Our ponds offer irrigation opportunities during drought, which keeps soil biology going and photosynthetic solar panels in full operation.

To be sure, the landscape was carefully managed by Native Americans.  Some tribes were better stewards than others, but the indigenous population pre-1492 was profoundly higher than it was in 1607.  Some 90 percent of the native population died in that century.  In fact, in 1492, more people lived in Kansas and Nebraska than live there today.  They weren’t eating Tyson chicken and corn-fed beef.

Here at Polyface, we don’t just complain about the weather; we honor fundamental ecological principles to restore the landscape.  We can’t stop droughts, floods, heat, or cold.  But we can massage creation, as caretakers and stewards, to ease nature’s hardships and gentle out the weather spikes.  

Yes, we’re obsessed about water, but not in a worrisome, fearful sort of way.  Instead, we build the soil sponge and carve extremely large bathtubs to ameliorate highs and lows.

Even urban areas can participate in water care.  Using compost on lawns rather than OM-cannibalizing chemical fertilizers is a good start.  Reducing impervious surface area.  Creating water run-off swales to slow down run-off and give it time to soak into the ground.  Cisterns to catch roof run-off. That could be a small fish pond or buried potable water container.  A living roof—grow your garden on the roof.  That’s another twist on solar panels.  All the vegetative cooling can let you shut off the air conditioner.

Normally our thoughts eventually drive our actions and our actions drive our thoughts.  It’s a self-perpetuating feedback loop.  

Perhaps in the hurried-harried, frantic-frenetic schedule of life, devoting a bit of time to thinking about water would help us all become better stewards. 

Water is life.  

The rain gauge is a little reminder - not only of our ultimate dependency on a power outside of ourselves - but the responsibility we enjoy to actively participate in this primal building block of our existence.

What are your thoughts and actions furthering?

- Joel