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Snow, snow, everywhere....
Mar. 31st, 2008 02:15 pmAt least it's still March (although it still feels like an April Fools! joke.).
*shrug* March and early April is always a very sloppy time. I'm tried of the snow and would have preferred a nice rain to this mess, but I know that it won't hang around long. I am very much looking forward to our first day of 50 degree weather, which should be coming this weekend (with luck).
There's a lot of people who see this as the end of the world, mostly because it's been a rather cold March and the past several years have spoiled us, but in reality this isn't unnatural weather. The first day of fishing season (trout season, to be specific) is the first Saturday in May, and I recall many an opening day having to walk through a couple of inches of snow.
This is always a hard time of the year for those above the 45th. It's made harder by the fact that so much of the world is firmly into spring and that we tend to forget that we live in a much different climate.
The latest freeze we ever had in the county was June 12 and the earliest freeze was August 2. And yes, that means July is the only month without an official freezing date -- I say official because I know that it's gotten down to 32 in some of the low lying areas at some point. Late freezes aren't that harmful, but let me tell you a freeze July or August really hurts.
Technically we have a 120 growing days, but in reality we can only count on 90 - 100. We never purchase seeds or seedlings that need more than 90 days to mature. Of course, we garden in one of those low lying area and it always freezes harder there.
This is why the garden shows never offer any really good advice to gardeners up here. They rarely have an clue about the realities of the weather we have up here. It's also why so many out-of-the-area agriculture experts get laughed out of town when they try to encourage the farmers to "plant early to get two crops". That only works for alfalfa, and sometimes not even that. Most years you're lucky if you get three bailing of hay from one field.
That said, our farming community is strong. My family manages plant and harvest a large amount of food for ourselves each year. You learn how to judge the weather, how to choose the right plants and how to pray when the early freeze is moving in.
I've come to realize that most of the world seems to take weather for granted until it happens to disrupt their lives in some manner. Then they're all surprised and shocked that nature could do that to them and that someone, somewhere didn't do something about it. Growing up in a farming community has given me, I believe, a stronger awareness of just how fickle weather is and how very tenuous our ability to deal with it really is.
When you're a farmer, tragedy doesn't have to come in the headline disasters of tornadoes or a hurricanes. It can be a quiet as two months of too little rain or, worse yet, one night of 32 degree temperatures. Whatever happens, it doesn't matter. There's nothing anyone can do to change it.
I think I'll take the snow now. A late spring may mean a late fall. Besides, snow is pretty.
*shrug* March and early April is always a very sloppy time. I'm tried of the snow and would have preferred a nice rain to this mess, but I know that it won't hang around long. I am very much looking forward to our first day of 50 degree weather, which should be coming this weekend (with luck).
There's a lot of people who see this as the end of the world, mostly because it's been a rather cold March and the past several years have spoiled us, but in reality this isn't unnatural weather. The first day of fishing season (trout season, to be specific) is the first Saturday in May, and I recall many an opening day having to walk through a couple of inches of snow.
This is always a hard time of the year for those above the 45th. It's made harder by the fact that so much of the world is firmly into spring and that we tend to forget that we live in a much different climate.
The latest freeze we ever had in the county was June 12 and the earliest freeze was August 2. And yes, that means July is the only month without an official freezing date -- I say official because I know that it's gotten down to 32 in some of the low lying areas at some point. Late freezes aren't that harmful, but let me tell you a freeze July or August really hurts.
Technically we have a 120 growing days, but in reality we can only count on 90 - 100. We never purchase seeds or seedlings that need more than 90 days to mature. Of course, we garden in one of those low lying area and it always freezes harder there.
This is why the garden shows never offer any really good advice to gardeners up here. They rarely have an clue about the realities of the weather we have up here. It's also why so many out-of-the-area agriculture experts get laughed out of town when they try to encourage the farmers to "plant early to get two crops". That only works for alfalfa, and sometimes not even that. Most years you're lucky if you get three bailing of hay from one field.
That said, our farming community is strong. My family manages plant and harvest a large amount of food for ourselves each year. You learn how to judge the weather, how to choose the right plants and how to pray when the early freeze is moving in.
I've come to realize that most of the world seems to take weather for granted until it happens to disrupt their lives in some manner. Then they're all surprised and shocked that nature could do that to them and that someone, somewhere didn't do something about it. Growing up in a farming community has given me, I believe, a stronger awareness of just how fickle weather is and how very tenuous our ability to deal with it really is.
When you're a farmer, tragedy doesn't have to come in the headline disasters of tornadoes or a hurricanes. It can be a quiet as two months of too little rain or, worse yet, one night of 32 degree temperatures. Whatever happens, it doesn't matter. There's nothing anyone can do to change it.
I think I'll take the snow now. A late spring may mean a late fall. Besides, snow is pretty.
