The weather this week has been unbelievably warm for Rhode Island in March. Monday, the last day of winter, was mid-70s and balmy; I walked to the downtown library at lunchtime and had to take off my Mister Rogers sweater when I got back to the office.
(I say not a word about climate change. Not a word. I said to Partner the other evening: It’s done. There’s nothing that can be done at this point, nothing more to be said. The climate’s changing. We may as well use up all the fossil fuels as fast as we can, because it won’t make a bit of difference. Oh kids. I hope we’ve got a couple of decades left before we all go phffft.)
The vegetation hereabouts – I can’t even tell you. It’s in total confusion. I think the snowdrops committed suicide, I never saw them bloom. The big witch-hazel tree on the corner of East Manning and Ives is still squeezing out red/yellow blossoms, even though it usually blooms in the January snow. The crocus (croci?) are on fast-forward: the leaves came up, then the buds swelled and bloomed in a day or two, and now they’re drooping in the heat. Daffodils realized that it must be spring and bloomed almost literally overnight. Tulips are leaping up a month early. Vinca is already blooming (doesn’t it usually wait until May?). The magnolias on the Brown campus are blooming here and there. Forsythia is coming out. The violets in the lawn outside aren’t blooming yet, but the leaves are turning peculiar colors.
(But most of the trees aren’t budding yet. It’s a strange combination: sunny warm balmy weather, flowers in the grass, and no leaves on the trees.)
(And I see on Facebook from my friends in the Northwest that it’s snowing. In mid-March! In the warm sweet welcoming Northwest!)
Everyone’s predicting a hot humid summer. I don’t know. I’m picturing one of those stormy summers, with a thunderstorm every evening and lots of hurricanes gestating in the Caribbean.
But who knows?
Enjoy the pretty flowers, kids. Enjoy the pretty flowers.
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