Why are Harsh Winters Important to our Landscapes?

Bad winters are important for many reasons to the economy. Plowing, broken pipes, wrecked cars, and broken bones are just a few of the examples of those economic drivers that unless those are your businesses we can do without. Remember the army worms? Our winter was the ultimate cure and if you have spent time in the south, you know the array of bugs, they have much worse than us. I’m banking that the two nights at Christmas with the temperatures under zero were enough to protect us.

How can Mild Winters Cause Collateral Damage?

Mother Nature has a road map she follows and its basis is the progressing daytime temperature and the length of the nights. The second of these is progressing along just like clockwork so what are our temperatures doing to our flora? By the time you receive this look for daffodils to begin blooming as well as other early bulbs. A yellow bush will mean that the forsythia got confused and a pink the dastardly quince. Gosh I hated pruning quince, one thing i don’t miss about the present.

Another 10 days and we will see the tree buds getting fat and turning pink. The woods are a beautiful shade of gray when that happens but there is potential short-term damage to all of these. The flowers that bloom now will not bloom again in March and ditto for the shrubs. Remember the funny shaped leaves from 4 or so years ago when this happened and the leaves that are all folded up in those buds got the outsides burnt by frost and freezing so when they opened up, they look like they had a disease.

The good news is that the environment was not long term damaged and while some plants had an ugly year, they all looked great the next. Time will tell.

A friend of mine loves to tell dad jokes. He started telling them when he taught a class in spring of 2020. In the middle of the class he would take a short break and tell a joke. His reasoning is the a short break can aid in learning. During that time is when the all caos broke. He started telling these jokes to cashiers because, at that time, they were stressing out big time. He would see the jokes were a stress reliever, even for a moment. He continues to this day telling dad jokes when the opportunity presents itself. Here are a few for the winter season.

• Tip of the day: Do not make snow angels in a dog park.
  
• How do gingerbread men make their beds? With cookie sheets.
• I saw a snowman in the produce department looking over the carrots.I finally realized he was picking his nose.
  

Now is time for Diane’s favorite part of the newsletter and we are leading the year off right with Diane’s favorite cat and I want to thank my son Ian and his wife Kelly for sharing their star child, Jet. He will take it from here:

Jet here. I’m a native Kiwi here, a New Zealander with a life dedicated to easing the way for a couple of immigrants. Well that’s what we islanders call others. As an aside I have done such an excellent job at this that most now regard mom and dad as Kiwi’s, too. Running an ad in the local Eastland Trader (think penny saver) doesn’t always result in the perfect parents but this time it did. Initially I thought Kelly and Ian were just like everyone else but I soon found out they weren’t native like me, but it’s all been good.

For the first 8 years they were near perfect companions except they traveled too often and too much. After all, at home they have my New Zealand paradise and the priceless bonus, me. Then Covid hit and I for one, loved it. You can say what you want but Kelly and Ian were home bound for several years. Nirvana!

What have I got from living through the embarrassment of correcting their accents and a few other peculiarities to the USers.

Well, my dad knows the value of a well-made cocktail I love snuggling so that’s always a good thing. He even makes beer and named his brewery after me “Jet Black Brews”. For me as much as everyone likes his brewing, this was a big deal.
 

Mom and Dad work hard and because of that they have this great house with a cool view that we live in. They embedded a special Jet chip under my skin so I and no one else can get into my house, and it allows me to hang on the deck and watch the beautiful sky.Rainbows are for everyone! It's about time you had a classy cat in your newsletter.

Thank you, Ian and Kelly, for permission to talk to Jet, and I am looking forward to spring.