The Green Spring

If there is one word to describe our Montana this spring, it would be “green.”
Lush. Verdant. Healthy. Thriving. Wide strips of wheat curving over the hilltops, the plants seeming to leap up every day as they grow longer and longer, sections of pasture for cattle and sheep turning from a dismal brown to knee high grass almost overnight. This all happened while we were gone, taking a vacation after Milton got the seeding done. I’d stepped into the pickup praying, hoping somehow it might rain, maybe a little, before we got home. Enough to sprout the wheat because it was so dry. Not since last May, a full year, had we had any good moisture. Just a couple of spring snowstorms that hit during calving and took more calves than anything else.

We left for the Redwoods on the 16th. Two days later it rained. Almost an inch. Gratefully, I thanked God because I knew then the wheat would come. But it didn’t stop there. All through the rest of May, up to today, the 23rd of June, we have had over 10 inches of rain, more moisture than we usually get in an entire year. The country is gorgeous!

Our wheat on Alvin’s place. Lifting its arms to the sun.

Last night, as we sat at the table eating supper, listening to the rain, gently splashing on the deck, we looked out to see the most magnificent rainbow, heralding promise across the eastern sky. So clear and distinct, we could make out every color, from the outside red band to the inner lavender, so close the ends fell right behind the barbed wire fence. I felt like God himself was telling us all would be ok. Through rain and through dry. I will take care of you.