Thank God for dirt.

I have spent the better part of my life paying for dirt. My close relative spends the better part of every day cleaning up dirt. Plowed dirt smells so good, not as good as mowed alfalfa, but good. We need - correction - gotta have dirt.

Now we need some water to moisten the dirt so we can call it soil, sod, and not enough to have lots of mud. Just need some rain on this old ground.

My ponds are sure low and I hate going into the winter with less water than I know we are gonna need.Sure, I’ve got faith and I also have a water tank just in case I need it, but first we need to pray.

I have stopped watching the news again. The weather patterns are so confusing and downright disgusting that I can’t rest after seeing the poor in Haiti suffering and trying to dry off. Then there are those huge waves on shores with names I can’t even begin to pronounce,washing folks out to sea. Yep, I guess I do have my head stuck in the sand.

I do know we are dry and winter is on the way. The old timers know lots of ways to forecast the winters. Woolly worms and such are always carefully scrutinized for sign. The seeds of some fruits will never fail to be correct if read by a native. I cut open a persimmon seed and was hoping for a spoon. No such luck, and the fork was so big it was marked Oneida on the back!

When my Pappy was in the horse cavalry, he said they had some stalls with cement floors so they could tie horses and mules in a couple of inches of water before working on their hooves. That would have been in the far west where it rains a lot but dries up before it hits the ground. I wonder if we are gonna have to do the same thingfor ourselves. Toenails need moisture too!

Some fellers are still cutting the last hay and rolling up big bales. You can spotthe activity ten miles away by the dust hanging in the air. I figure they didn’t cut the grass, it just snapped off when the mower touched it.

The diatribe on the weather will not solve a whit of our troubles but it might make some of us feel better. Maybe we could get together and blow off enough steam to seed some rain clouds!

It is my opinion, and everyone has one, if we didn’t have the weather to worry over, what would we do for fun? We might spend that time and effort getting into things we shouldn’t or minding someone else’s business. We fume over the heat, the cold, the mud and then the dry conditions, seldom ever satisfied.

I am so thankful to have a pecan pie in the house for my dinner dessert, had good biscuits for breakfastand my truck started this morning. My boots are not plumb worn out, my hat is good and the grands are healthy. Just go ahead and grin, the dust on your teeth might help you digest the required salad you gotta eat before you can have a steak! That is true grit!

Bill is the pen name used by the Gravette author of this weekly column.

Opinion, Pages 6 on 11/17/2010