Flat and Dry

One of the nice things about serving missions in various places around the world is the opportunity it gives us to learn about other people, other places, other ideas, other ways of doing things, etc.

To the left is a flat cropland field in Kansas. The picture was taken from the side of the road, and that is the road with some snow on the side, not water in the forground.

Where does the “flat” come from? Why is it called “Flat Kansas?” The effort to answer such a question requires a little faith in the conclusions that Geologist have made from the evidences they have seen.

I would suppose that one of the tenets of Geology is that the earth is constantly changing. They talk in numbers of millions of years for changes to take place, and I don’t have a memory that long, but I know that one of the questions I am going to get answered when I get to see the “reruns” (i.e. those promised opportunities after this life to see the whole history of this earth) will be similar to this one about Flat Kansas, and of the mountains, and continental drifts, and . . . . There’s so much to learn, and so little reliability in what we already “know” about things.

Tumbleweeds are a common thing on the flatland prairie. The cowboys used to sing about them. "...see them tumbling down, pledging their hearts to the ground, here on the range I belong..." In this picture you can see Sister Howlett standing by a line of tumbleweeds that have been collected by this fence when the wind blew them against it.

But let us consider these proposals from the theories of Geologists. They say that there was once a very large lake that covered this area. That should be capitalized: VERY! It is said to have covered all of the state of Kansas. Some of Missouri too. And some of South Dakota. And some of Oklahoma, and some of Colorado. This whole central plain East of the Rockies is said to have been part of it. That’s a big lake.

Look at the tumbleweeds gathered around the base of this tree to the left. It seems like they are seeking refuge there from a storm, or something. The tumbleweeds keep rolling along until something stops them, in this case, the tree and fence behind it.

Where did the lake go? The only answer I’ve heard to that question is “Down.” Some of the “down” is down river to the ocean. The greater Mississippi, Missouri, and Arkansas river system ultimately receives water from this plains area. But there’s another “down” to think of. That is down into the ground.

Notice to the right the Arkansas River bed going under the bridge. It is dry because the water has gone underground, not being enough to flow above ground. What you see on the skyline is the Ethanol plant that turns corn into gasoline.

There are people who have knowledge of the waters that are down under the ground surface. Around here they dig a lot of wells, and they know how far “down” to go to get what they want. They say there is an “Aquifer” down there, and they say that an aquifer is just a lake of water that is underground. They say that the lake just went underground, but it is there. They talk about the level of the aquifer – in dry years up here they say the top of the aquifer gets lower by fairly predictable numbers: 10, 20, maybe 50 feet in some years.

On a clear night we took this picture that looks like the "Cheshire Cat's Smile". There have been lots of clear nights here in dry Kansas.

It reminds me of the mountain lakes in dry years when the lake recedes and leaves bare an old line revealing clear marks all around the lake where the high-water line was in past years. There’s no way to see such lines for this aquifer as it is all underground. They say that it takes a really wet year to raise the aquifer level. I guess it has been going down pretty steady since dams were built in Colorado to stop the water coming from the mountains for use in the cities and farms there. Now the farmers in Kansas have to have their own wells to be able to get water to their crops, and they run it all through pipes and controlled sprinkling systems so it isn’t wasted.

These are the crop sprinkler systems. Notice the well pipe that goes down into the ground at right then the sprinklers spread out from that ground pipe. Sometimes the well is in the middle of a whole rotation circle of the sprinklers and sometimes it is in the middle of a half circle or even a quarter circle.

The real “dry-land-farmers” (those who don’t have wells and sprinklers) are totally at the mercy of the spring and summer rains, and if they are limited or at the wrong time (as last year 2011) then they see their crops dry up and die, and there’s nothing they can do about it. A lot of those farmers lost out last year. We saw a lot of fields dry up last summer. Many fields seemed to be like a single plant. They started to dry up at the edges and curl inward, then the whole field just dried up and died. But these farmers seem to be hardier than their fields. Our stake president is one of the farmers with wells, and one of his counselors is a dry-land farmer. They are both great men who have learned to survive here in spite of the dry seasons.

Here is a picture of Sister Seger and President Seger at their home when they were getting gifts ready to give to all the missionaries serving in the Garden City Stake (Zone) area. Notice Elder Howlett to the left in the picture enjoying the generosity of the Segers.