I immediately thought that it would be great if all of us observers kept a record of what we see. It doesn't have to be elaborate. Even an index card tucked in the recipe box with the dates of the first [fill in the blank] bloom of the year, or the first of last snow, would be a climate record. I thought about keeping a recipe and gardening notebook and dedicating a few pages in the front for noting benchmark events around Chez Bad Mom. I imagine tables for first crocus, Siberian iris, Japanese iris, jacaranda, hydrangea and Japanese anemone blooms of the year. Of course, the crocus bloom came and went while I was battling infections. But, it is not too late to start a notebook for the rest of the eagerly anticipated events. We can also track the contents of our biweekly CSA produce boxes and what we made with them. Mark has been incredibly creative.
Earth Day falls midweek this year; that's why this is such a short post.
- Walking My Watershed is a longer and Earth Day appropriate post.
- The Daily Breeze summed up area Earth Day events around the South Bay.
- Redondo Beach residents can drop off toxic/e-waste at 1521 Kingsdale Ave between 9:00 and 15:00 at 1521 Kingsdale Ave on Saturday, April 25.
- SEA Lab will offer household paper shredding between 10:00 and 15:00 on April 25.
Aside:
The e-waste bag contains a Rowenta iron I bought 15 years ago. When I bought its replacement at Costco last month, I overheard a couple discussing which iron they should buy. They wondered why anyone would buy the $80 Rowenta over the $25 Black and Decker. After all, they have to buy a new one each year. I rest my case.
I should put a chart in the back of my garden journal for specific dates; that is a really good idea. The nice thing about having it is I can see what the garden was versus what it is now after two and a half years of neglect.
ReplyDeleteEven with my slipshod record keeping though I can see that the crocuses and daffodils were late this year. The simplest daffodils were about 2 weeks late compared to previous years, although before this everything had been getting earlier. We have had a long cold spring, and the ground really didn't defrost until March, which is unusual.
The fritillaria are right on schedule though. The later daffodils aren't blooming yet although they had been opening around April 15th the past few years. I'll wait to see what happens with the trees. They used to leaf out consistently around May 3 but that had moved up to around April 27-29 the past couple of years. This year should be interesting.
Good idea, and while we're at it, record changes in wildlife. We used to see lots of burrowing owls and coyotes in our area. No more. Oregon Junkos came to our backyard around this time of year. They were here weeks ahead of schedule this year.
ReplyDeleteThe times they are a changing.
The maples leafed out yesterday, April 24, as opposed to the traditional date of May 3rd, which was constant for years and years, even though it hasn't been May 3rd for some years. Still, April 24 is the earliest I remember. Last year it was April 27. I think the bulbs are late merely because the ground thawed later than usual, but the change in winter patterns may be part of the same general weather shift.
ReplyDelete