The Weather Feels Wrong
On Monday, I put my winter coat on and my real winter mittens. Thank goodness. The Saturday before, I had put on a fall coat, and in the afternoon, I didn’t even button it up. It was too warm for December. In fact, it’s been too mild for at least six weeks.
In mid-November, a forsythia along the road put out seven blossoms. They were a bright spot in the world that had turned grey, but they were wrong. No insects were around to pollinate them. And come spring, those twigs will have that many fewer blossoms.
On Saturday, I found three new leaves on the raspberry bushes. At the end of the twigs, new green leaves had sprouted. They are not going to make it through the winter. Three leaves will not make a huge difference to these large plants, but it still feels wrong, like the plants are confused.
Insects were confused too. I saw a caterpillar, a house fly, and several little flies scurrying around outside. There was nothing for them to properly do. I just hope that they found their way back to a winter hideout as evening came and temperatures dropped.
Yes, Monday’s weather brought snow squalls, but we need snow. There has been almost no precipitation in the last six weeks. I did not walk up the hill that day because there was a thick layer of snowy ice on the side of the road, and I knew the hill would be slippery. But I am not complaining. Every bit of snow will nurture the ground, the plants, the trees. True, I don’t like driving in snow squalls. I moved an appointment for Wednesday to Thursday given that we are supposed to get ten to twenty centimeters of snow on Wednesday though we only got a skiff here by the shore.
Over the years, I watched the buds on the lilacs at the farm swell just a little with every winter thaw. By the time we headed into March, the buds would be almost as green as they were brown. But they never went too far. Always, they took their cue to wait just a little longer until spring actually arrived before releasing their colour.
Last year in a November warm spell, I saw a salamander that had crawled out of its winter den. I moved it off the road to a leafy nook, hoping it would warm up enough during the day to bury itself enough to survive the winter. I am glad I did not see such a creature on Saturday when the ground was almost frozen and finding a hiding spot would be that much harder.
I will acknowledge that the lack of snow cover has drawn my attention to the colour of the leaf quilt covering the ground. It’s not the same as October’s brilliant yellow and red, but the leaves have turned to a multitude of rust colours, some darker, some bright, some almost orange. It is an ever-varying patchwork covering the bare ground. In places, it is a thick layer that protects the earth beneath and anything hiding in that earth.
Beautiful as they are, I hope they are soon covered with a good blanket of snow, insulating the ground, waiting to provide much needed spring moisture. We could use an old fashioned, Grey County winter.
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