Residual storm talk and wildflowers or weeds

 

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             Several years ago now, my Garland County district-highway-department-maintenance supervisor-son Eric, told me those tall yellow-blossomed weeds in my north yard that I took a hoe to were NOT dandelions, but lanced-leaf coreopsis!

            Dandelions, he said, were short-stemmed and had different-shaped leaves. So I composed a table bouquet containing ligustrum (cultivated privet) and lanced-leaved coreopsis. I love the roadside tickseed coreopsis and have one blooming in the porch flowerbox. I moved it from the north bed because I didn’t tend that one very often.

           On the current subject of flooding, the Great Flood of 1937 was greater than the one in 1927, records-wise. 2011’s floods equaled 1937’s. It remains to be seen how this year’s numbers will compare.

           I was amazed at the chutzpah of several government folks the last time we had such an exorbitant amount of rain—I think in 2011. Three examples are: “So far, we’re holding the [Mississippi] river at bay.” –Desha County judge. I don’t think so.

          “I’ve done nothing at all to prepare to leave here. We are going to be safe.” –a resident of Lake Village. I hope he was correct.

            “...We’re in a flood fight . . . [that] at this point we are winning.” – a Vicksburg District Corps of Engineers person. But I wouldn’t count on it always happening that way.

           A more sensible observation was this one: “Flood control—spillways, reservoirs and lakes are man’s puny little efforts against something as mighty as the Mississippi River.”– C. Sullivan.

          This year’s quotes seem to be more poetic and cautious: “The rhythm to the changes in the river level may be helping the levee system hold up”––R.Stires, Conway County flood plain manager. “We get rain, the river goes up, and then we get a few days to get the river out.” (article by K. Heard, AD-G, 5/28/15)
         
          Another comment the following day by J. Lesko, meteorologist, NLR, follows the same line of thinking: “We are in a pattern where the rivers crest and then begin falling below flood stage when the next system comes and turns the river around.” (also a K. Heard article.)

         Figures from 2011 showed that Arkansas had received eleven disaster declarations for tornadoes, floods, snowstorms, ice storms and remnants of three hurricanes, according to Chad Stover, spokesperson for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management.

         Early on—before this Memorial Day weekend—I texted grandson Billy please NOT to be on any of the rivers close to Arkadelphia. “Why?” he asked.” “Water’s running high and fast,” I told him. “Ah, okay.” Whew!

         Blooming plants at Couchwood this week included a lone surviving pansy, lamb’s ear—that my brother says are mullein pinks––celosia, oxalis, freesia, abelia, hydrangeas, coreopsis and chrysanthemums. By next week, perhaps the gardenias and Easter lilies will be out with their luscious, intense scents. And also the day lilies.

         While lance-leaved coreopsis may be wildflowers on the roadsides and in hayfields, when they invade yards and cemeteries, I consider them weeds. Sorry, Eric.