The Un-Winter

After the last couple of winters, I guess we deserve it, but it's still a bit unnerving. While folks to our south had a pretty serious snowstorm last weekend, we only got 6 inches and that's the only plowable snow we've had all winter. We haven't had any unusually cold weather -- seasonal normal is the coldest it's been -- and mostly we've been weirdly warm.

For me this means I can do activities that are usually shut down in mid-winter. With no snow on the ground, I've kept on processing firewood. I'm planning to spread some compost on the garden and the ground may even thaw enough this week for me to do some landscaping.

There is a lesson here about us blinkered creatures, however. As much as I welcome the relief from winter, I know it's bad news in the long run. The hemlock trees will die if there isn't any deep cold to kill the woolly adelgids. Other exotic pests and invasive plants will multiply as well. Change isn't necessarily bad but if it comes too fast the individual species and the ecosystem as a whole can't adapt. There's no telling what's going to happen exactly but you can't help but worry. And yet a part of me keeps rooting for mild weather. This probably helps explain the political paralysis over the crisis.

Oh well.