Life by the Big Muddy

 A dear friend asked me to blog our new adventures in Missouri, but I’ve not taken the time to sit down and write anything. I wanted fabulous pictures to go with the posts, but unlike where we used to live in Oregon, the roads here are roller coaster strips of pavement winding through corn and soybean fields. Shoulders to pull off on are non-existent on most back roads. I didn’t want to scare folks by pulling off onto their driveways to jump out and take photos, but I’m hoping to get some good shots soon. Our neighborhood is surrounded by verdant fields, so add that to beautiful early morning sunrises, I have captured a couple of share worthy shots so far.

Missouri is unlike any other state I’ve lived in. Most notable to me so far has been all the back roads spider webbing through the landscape; some flat, some quite winding with deep dips shaded under a canopy of tree branches reaching across both sides of the road.

Intriguing to me has been the lack of sprinklers anywhere here. The corn, and soybean fields stretch for miles, with nary a watering system in sight. Yards here are watered by Mother Nature, and that’s it! Our yard has some spots that could use watering, but that’s only because of the soil in those areas. No one waters their vegetable gardens either, yet they have huge beautiful squash, pepper and tomato plants. I was so intrigued by the lack of sprinklers so I asked my neighbor and she said the soil here is mostly a silt loam, which has great drainage, but is also relatively moist, so gardens don’t need to be watered unless we have a long dry stretch of weather. Haven't seen that happen yet. Combine that with the rainfall here, and there’s no need to water in most cases. We do have pockets of very thick clay in our yard, so I will have to loosen that up with sand and a lot of peat moss, because it doesn't hold water, as it's too dense. 

Speaking of rainfall, when it rains here, which happens more than predicted, it comes in waves of water from the clouds. You think I’m kidding, right? Ha! We had 18 inches come down in a 24 hour period, and thus ended up with a bit of water in our basement because the ground was saturated and there was no where else for it to go. Luckily for us it was minor flooding, but the folks across the street had inches of water in their basement for days as it kept trickling down the hill from above. As for driving in a cloudburst here, there are some who think they are impervious, but most of us just pull off to the side of the road, if there is one, or become one of those annoyingly slow drivers going 25 mph to keep from going off the road or veering into oncoming traffic. It's like trying to drive through a car wash, without the suds of course.

My next post I’ll share a bit about the birds, and the bugs and the heat, oh my! Have a blessed day, Sheryl