We left for our spring vacation on May 8 returning home late May 25. Actually we made a pit stop at home for about 18 hours between flights. I have pictures to share and got a lot of novel growing ideas during the trips so will share those as well but to start off I have a few thoughts on the weather. It was a long, drawn-out winter with ample snow fall. There wasn't a spell of bitter cold that we usually get, the kind that makes the snow crunch under foot. Winter continued to drag on with snow in April as well. The boats in the marina where our boat is were scheduled to be put in the water in mid-April but they had to postpone that because the water was still iced over. By the time we were ready to leave on our vacation, the local farmers were about two weeks behind schedule for planting. Now two weeks doesn't sound like a lot but it is when dealing with an already short growing season!
The first leg of our vacation was spent in Las Vegas. We arrived to cooler temperatures than expected. The first afternoon it was chilly and raining but as we waited for the valet it started hailing! We have visited Las Vegas many times and this is only the second time we have seen rain there. A couple of days into the trip saw the temperature warm up closer to normal although the skies still looked ominous. We saw sun the last couple of days of the trip. We arrived home late Saturday (May 14) to obviously soggy conditions. While we were away it rained quite a bit so there was standing water in the fields and rising water levels in ditches. It was too wet to cut the grass. We left the following morning for our vacation home in central Florida where we were met with warmer temperatures. There had been a fair amount of rain there as well but it had warmed up earlier so we missed the love bugs. It was hot, humid with popup thunderstorms. We managed to do a bit of gardening in the front but it really was too hot to do much. While we were in Florida we followed the tornado devastation in Joplin, Missouri. We left Florida on the 25th knowing our flight was making a brief stop in Atlantic City as we couldn't get a direct return flight. That day severe storms made their way across the mid-west up through Canada. When we arrived in Atlantic City we ended up deplaning then delayed for three and a half hours due to the weather. It was 93ºF when we left Tampa and 57ºF when we landed in Detroit. Even though it was dark driving home the flooded fields were apparent. We had to put the heat on in the house to take the chill off.
The combination of cooler temperatures and excessive rain has already affected local farmers. The fields are too wet to plant. It is so wet that the local golf courses have had to cancel regular golfing as well as a couple of tournaments. Home gardeners are feeling the effects of the weather here as well. On a global scale though, it is hard to fathom how vicious the weather has been. Whether this is due to global warming or part of a cyclic weather pattern remains to be determined. It is apparent that the global weather is negatively affecting our food supply.
Happy Gardening!
Garden Gnome
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