Lighter Side: Weather or Not

I’m writing this in February, so don’t yet know if April showers will bring May flowers, but I’m hoping tradition holds. Last year, due to climate change, March showers brought April flowers, which I found unsettling, even as I welcomed the early arrival of blooms and blossoms. This past fall, when warm weather persisted well into December, our two magnolia trees budded out, along with our lilacs, which mustered up a second round of flowers. Two weeks before Christmas, my wife went outside with an empty flower vase and came inside with the vase full and flowing over. It’s hard to speak against climate change when it brings you fresh flowers in December.

While Indiana lacks many of the geographical features folks seem to favor — namely beaches and mountains — it is predicted we’ll weather climate change better than most. The nearest ocean is 500 miles away, so rising sea levels won’t flood our homes. With the Great Lakes, we have the largest freshwater reserves in the world. In those parts of the state that don’t have much water above ground, there is an abundance of it underground. Last summer, while drilling a well at our farm, I hit a gusher at 20 feet, then drilled down another 80 feet just to be sure. When water becomes more precious than oil, I’ll be as rich as the Sheik of Araby.

I’m even ready for the high heat, having built a screenhouse behind our house at the edge of our hayfield, where there’s always a breeze. When it’s 90°F outside, it’s a comfortable 75°F in the screenhouse. If it gets hotter than that, we can nap in our cellar, which is 65°F year-round, no matter what. If there weren’t so many spiders in attendance, I’d probably spend the whole summer there.

Tornadoes, which for hundreds of years were our Achilles heel, have now moved southward, walloping the mid-Southern states while leaving us Hoosiers unscathed. Lots of folks in those states believe nothing happens without God’s approval, but I’m betting they’ll change their tune once they get walloped with a tornado. Nothing alters someone’s theology quicker than a tornado.

This past January, I spent a week in Tucson, visiting a friend. It was 60°F and sunny the whole time I was there. When I returned to Indiana, it was also 60°F and sunny, making my 3,400-mile trip unnecessary, except that I got to see my friend, who is worried he made a mistake buying a home in Tucson, where the aquifer is dropping 5 feet a year. There are solutions, of course. He can wash his car or take a day off work, two activities guaranteed to generate rain.

My wife and I were planning to vacation in California this summer to see the redwood trees, but between the mudslides and fires, two more consequences of climate change, the window of visitation has narrowed to nothing. The tallest tree in California is named Hyperion and stands at 379 feet. Any tree with its own name is bound to be amazing. Indiana’s tallest tree is an unnamed 191-foot-tall tulip poplar. We Hoosiers prize our anonymity. The Department of Natural Resources won’t reveal its location for fear some knuckle­head with a chainsaw will cut it down. Tornadoes used to take care of our knucklehead problem, but no more. Still, it’s May, a month so perfect I can forget our troubles, both large and small, national and local, and be grateful for the flowers the rains have made possible, a fitting reminder that every difficulty can give birth to blessing.

Philip Gulley is a Quaker pastor and author of 22 books, including the Harmony and Hope series, featuring Sam Gardner.

This article is featured in the May/June 2025 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.