Monday, March 19, 2012

It's a Mad, Mad World

It's shaping up to be another absolutely gorgeous early spring day here on Maple Lake.  The birds are singing, the sun is burning off the mist over the lake, and the breezes are fresh and warm.

Let me put this in perspective for you.  Normal highs this time of year are 3C.  Today's high is forecasted to be 17C.  Madness!

The weather is doing wonderful things for the human spirit.  People are happy, laughing, thrilled with the warmth.  You can't help but want to get out and about and busy when the days are like this.  How great it is to throw off winter's oppression and fling open all the windows and doors.  To wear shorts.  In March.




That's all well and good for us humans, but what about the natural world?  What about those chipmunks that are drawn out of hibernation from the warmth of the sun?  The daffodils being coaxed from the cold earth?  The fat, red, almost bursting maple buds?  Unlike us, these natural phenomena don't rely on man-made calenders, they depend on the seasons behaving as they ought to!  I'm certainly not packing away my winter gear yet, but who is going to tell the chipmunks that?






My fear is that the next hard frost (and don't doubt that there won't be one!) will negatively impact the new, too early growth.  If the trees start to leaf out and we get a hard frost, we can expect that delicate new foliage to die off.  Likewise, if some early plants such as garlic get a head start, and then are killed off by the returning cold,  farmers can lose an entire crop.

Here's hoping the return to cold before true spring emerges is an easy one.

3 comments:

  1. Well said and very true!

    This post is the reason I shouldn't complain about the fact that we got some snow over the weekend. I should really think about the farmers more often than I do!

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  2. I wonder if the black flies will be negatively affected. Maybe there will be fewer when true spring comes back.

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  3. Enjoy it and embrace it. Longe range forecasts show that this blessing will continue.

    I am afraid about the bugs though. Traditionally the deep winter freeze will kill off a certain percentage of them. The entire Ontario was way too easy on them. ...... I hate the Deer flies and Horse flies. Why can't there be Care Bear flies, they sound like nice flies. :)

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