by Pa Rock
Farmer in Winter
When I was a child in elementary school, I remember two Thanksgivings in a row when we had snow in southern Missouri - really big snows. And as a young school teacher in a rural school district in southern Missouri forty years ago, I remember long stretches of "snow days" every winter, breaks so long that we actually got tired of staying home and missing work.
That was then, and the times have definitely changed. I have lived at my current home over five years. I arrived in March of 2014 and had to scrape ice off of the porch before I could begin unloading the car. But since that time we have had almost no icy or snowy weather - over a five year span!
Today as I type I am also watching a wasp that dropped out of the curtain and landed on the window sill. He is a bit lethargic, but he is moving around. My heater isn't on this morning, yet Mr. Wasp decided that it was time to end his winter's hibernation - or whatever it is that wasps do when they disappear during the cold months.
A couple of weeks ago I stepped outside before daylight one morning and got a strong whiff of a skunk. I'm not sure what skunks traditionally do in the winter, but they usually are not out and about. A friend said that he had seen a snake a few days ago. Snakes, cold-blooded creatures, curl up in a hole and basic freeze for the winter, and if they are beginning to thaw, well that's just almost scary - Stephen King scary!
But that's the issue - we aren't having cold months, at least like those glorious cold and snowy months of my wayward youth. Yesterday was Christmas and the temperature outside was seventy degrees Fahrenheit. Seventy degrees - and sunny! That's warm enough to thaw a snake! At that rate the trees will begin budding any day now, and I'm surprised that the spring bulbs aren't already peeking up through the ground.
The old men sitting around the big table in the coffee shop may give Mother Nature or God credit for the "good" weather - or more likely Trump, but those of us who don't get our news from Fox are more inclined to see this as a man-made weather crisis, one that will likely have devastating effects on mankind.
Thats kind of talk that would get a person hooted out of the coffee shop.
Farmer in Winter
When I was a child in elementary school, I remember two Thanksgivings in a row when we had snow in southern Missouri - really big snows. And as a young school teacher in a rural school district in southern Missouri forty years ago, I remember long stretches of "snow days" every winter, breaks so long that we actually got tired of staying home and missing work.
That was then, and the times have definitely changed. I have lived at my current home over five years. I arrived in March of 2014 and had to scrape ice off of the porch before I could begin unloading the car. But since that time we have had almost no icy or snowy weather - over a five year span!
Today as I type I am also watching a wasp that dropped out of the curtain and landed on the window sill. He is a bit lethargic, but he is moving around. My heater isn't on this morning, yet Mr. Wasp decided that it was time to end his winter's hibernation - or whatever it is that wasps do when they disappear during the cold months.
A couple of weeks ago I stepped outside before daylight one morning and got a strong whiff of a skunk. I'm not sure what skunks traditionally do in the winter, but they usually are not out and about. A friend said that he had seen a snake a few days ago. Snakes, cold-blooded creatures, curl up in a hole and basic freeze for the winter, and if they are beginning to thaw, well that's just almost scary - Stephen King scary!
But that's the issue - we aren't having cold months, at least like those glorious cold and snowy months of my wayward youth. Yesterday was Christmas and the temperature outside was seventy degrees Fahrenheit. Seventy degrees - and sunny! That's warm enough to thaw a snake! At that rate the trees will begin budding any day now, and I'm surprised that the spring bulbs aren't already peeking up through the ground.
The old men sitting around the big table in the coffee shop may give Mother Nature or God credit for the "good" weather - or more likely Trump, but those of us who don't get our news from Fox are more inclined to see this as a man-made weather crisis, one that will likely have devastating effects on mankind.
Thats kind of talk that would get a person hooted out of the coffee shop.
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