This cold spring is dragging on and on. It's reminiscent of the spring of '97, which I spent glued to The Weather Channel from my dorm room in Indiana desperately waiting for the temperatures to bust out of the 50s (which I don't think they managed to do before classes got out the first week of May). That year, we also spent a cold, gray Memorial Day in sweatshirts. After a freakishly warm December and January this winter, we've had a freakishly cold and raw February, March and April. Whereas I have a photo from a late March workday with my kids from last year in which the honeysuckles were already leafing out, everything is still bare and grouchy-looking this year. I have a garlic mustard pull scheduled for two weeks from now, but I have yet to see any garlic mustard plant showing its crinkly green face. The scientist in me knows that this is not proof against global warming, but just the stochastic nature of nature....but it can't help be a little relieved, as well.
Until I have time to expound on my spring break road trip to the southwest two weeks ago (prevented thus far by end-of-3rd-quarter madness), here are some tiny, hopeful signs of life from the Chicago region. The following photos were snapped yesterday while spreading native seed mixes at Bunker Hill. It snowed while I was doing this, by the way. On April 13. Snow. Unapologetic snow.
A timid rattlesnake master peeks above the charred debris in the mesic prairie area of Bunker Hill. They got a pretty extensive prescribed burn in the first week of April.
Guess who--wood betony (Pedicularis canadensis)! I've never seen it in hot-pink pre-photosynthetic mode. There's usually no reason for me to be poking around in a prairie this early in the season.
A freshly buzz-cut-by-fire prairie dropseed clump sprouts some new growth.
