"Home" garlic, a 3rd generation derivative of Merck Forest's from an epic day of garlic harvest, lightning storms, and prayer. It's already four+ inches emerged with a nice south-bound view.
Cottage beebalm is healthy and prolific as ever.
And this is what happens when you have a dry winter plus a solid five days of 60-85 degree weather in mid-March: dessication. Drying out. Remember the Dust Bowl?
To look at these photos and then to reflect on Bill McKibben's Saturday presentation is telling: this is what climate change looks like. In one year in the relatively stable Vermont, we've seen Hurricane Irene-- one of the largest rain events in VT, followed by one of the sunniest and driest Novembers-- a record that then then extended to the whole winter, followed by record-setting March temperatures. Not just records that were broken by a day or two, but a week of record highs that were surpassed by 20 to 30 degrees.
Tonight the heat is back on, and South Londonderry's predicted low is to drop to 14 degrees. 14 degrees! That's a 68 degree swing from high to low over the course of 4 days. The forecast is unprecedented: with high winds and dry conditions, we had forest fire warnings in Vermont. In March. Unbelievable.McKibben's presentation was unarmingly casual yet the threat of climate change to him was no less dire-- much like the threats that climate change offer us in our day-to-day lives. 80 degrees in March is a welcome warm-up to our winter skins, but who is going to pollinate those pear blossoms? Who's to say that a more densely-condensation laden atmosphere won't throw one more sub-freezing system at us, bringing one more night to frost the blossoms and render the fruit wasted? WWRFS?-- What would Robert Frost say?
For more information and a printable .pdf registration form head to