Relative Something

Yesterday, the temperature in the region soared. Driving home from the day-job in the Cities provided a view of the changing landscape as the snow cover peeled back to expose the earth beneath. I got a hint of what spring must be like around here. It is invigorating. At the same time, the warmth makes me wonder if I am living in a time when the climate will shift dramatically enough to alter what lives and dies here.

Will we be able to grow things that previously couldn’t survive the long, harsh winter? Will it become so warm and dry that we will no longer be unable to grow things that used to thrive here? It’s hard to imagine, but with the last year being the warmest since records have been kept, I find myself closer to accepting the possibility.

I suppose that our plan to take on the responsibility of feeding and watering horses might be contributing to my thoughts on the subject. Are we trying to create a life here at a time when “here” is changing to the point of making that life more difficult to support? Well, maybe the changes will make things easier in ways that balance the things that get harder. We’ll take advantage of that.

Today, they are predicting that our current warm spell is to be short-lived. Temps are expected to dive tomorrow, and by Monday become the coldest of the season. The problem that this scenario unleashes is that our insulating snow cover disappears with the high temperatures, and then the frigid blast sends the hard freeze ever deeper into the ground. This kind of weather pattern does not bode well for dreams of being able to grow warmer zone plants here any time soon.

I don’t think there is much hope that we will be able to grow camellias like Ian has in his forest garden, even though there are hybrids that have been released in the U.S. that are expanding the range into warmer zones. When the arctic region stays above freezing, then maybe our growing zone will become the 7-9 that supports these hybrids. We currently show up as being zone 4b. We are too close to those blasts of polar air that bash us like someone left the door open to Canada every so often.

I’ll keep my hopes on the local farmers being able to successfully grow healthy crops of horse-hay, and our pastures staying green, no matter how hot and dry our region becomes. I probably won’t be building many igloos, but I might want to look into a way to collect any snow that does fall, to save the moisture content in a cistern for summertime droughts.