Winter. . .?

It is pretend winter in North Carolina.  We have worked outside in shirt sleeves for the last several days, clearing out the asparagus patch, pruning fruit trees, getting the big garden ready for greenhouse construction.  The old maple with its gnarled bark is budding out, now, in the last breaths of January, a herald of Spring.  There are daffodils blooming down next to the creek.

We all keep waiting, mittens and earmuffs by the door.  Where is the snow? The ice?  The chance to have to stay home?  

I have built fires anyway, even though the nights barely dip below freezing.  Because you are supposed to be able to build fires in December and January, and go in there after dinner and read and pet the dog with your feet.  It is one of my favorite parts of living this far north.  

But evidently the heat is blooming.  The USDA just redid their maps, and we are officially 7b instead of just 7, and there are parts of our land that are definitely 8’s, maybe southern slopes that would even be warmer.  For those of you who don’t plant, those numbers simply signify the number of nights per year that the temperature drops below freezing.

It means a lot more than whether you need your gloves on for a late run to the grocery.  Plants choose where they thrive based on temperature ranges and they don’t pick up and move easily.  Our local agricultural extension agent has already predicted gloom for the fruit growers around here as it takes a certain number of freezing nights to set both foliage and flower for fruit trees and we ain’t had ‘em.  For those of us who don’t sell peaches or plums to send our kids to college, its no big deal.  For those who do, if this is a trend, it could be a life changer.

In my family psychology, if this is a trend, the blame can be laid squarely at the feet of Al Gore.  In my family, you simply don’t talk about problems.  If you do, they exist.  If you don’t, they don’t.  That Al Gore insisted on bringing it up, over and over, well clearly, this is what you get, daffodils in January which we are using as code for what is happening to the polar bears which is too heartbreaking to discuss.

Daffodils in January is code for a lot of big fat unpleasantness.  Suddenly we are the mercy of erratic, intense weather patterns.  The rain seems to simply stop for big areas of the world, and deluge somewhere else.  The thermostat got stuck in Texas last summer and fall, only resetting when the sun itself moved its gaze to the Southern Hemisphere.  

I’m trying to enjoy the unusual pleasure of January sun on my skin, of being able to get a head start on clearing out the gardens, on getting ready for Spring.  I’m trying to pretend its early March, which is what these mid-sixty degree days would tell me.  I’m trying not to listen to my inner Debbie Downer who keeps whispering, if it is this warm now, what is it going to be in July?

Perhaps a positive part of this is that we are being reminded of Nature’s power, in no uncertain terms.  We can do what we can now, driving less, racing to develop more sustainable technologies, conserving energy, recycling, but Nature is already responding to our decades of wanton abuse.  It is on. 

We are being brought to our knees.  Once again, which is where we started, we humans, on our knees in reverential respect to the Rain Gods, the Thunder Gods, the Sun Gods.  All powerful, unpredictable.  Nature, the ultimate Decider.  

So maybe the beauty of those daffodils, the startling yellow, the deep green, the first shoots of the daylilies coming back, maybe if I just settle into the awe, maybe that’s the place from which to watch what is unfolding, whatever it is.