The growing season usually starts about mid May here the foothills of central California where I have lived for (51-18=33) thirty-three years now, the same amount of time I have known Misses B. I met her the year I moved up here. Local nurseries recommend that gardeners wait until after Mother's day to plant most things. There is a possibility of frost, and a very real chance of thunderstorms with dime size or bigger hail that can shred tender leaves like a weed-whip with a hormonal imbalance. Have you ever seen a thousand people clear a beach in five minutes? I have.
Several years ago my sister and her kids came to town some time around mid June. We all headed down to one of the local lakes for some sun, swimming and scenery. It's a very crowded beach so by "scenery" I mean half-naked fully-developed women. After a bit some very black and ominous looking clouds ended the "sun" part of the excursion. There was a flash of lightening out over the lake followed by a crack and then the slow deep pleasing roll of thunder. "Lets go", I live here, I know whats coming next. Besides it is never a good idea to be in or near the water when the Thunder Gods are angry. Tourist, what do they know? We get all our stuff packed up, so do some of the other people who descended from apes. Then it happens. One of the big black clouds moves to left, another does a quick side step to the right and out of the hole in between comes masses of frozen water in marble sized chunks. And it hurts. And it is down right scary, especially if you're not expecting it and most of these people were not expecting it. Black clouds, lightening, thunder and these people were oohing and aahhing like it was part of the light show for the Scrambled Omelet Reunion Tour. Imagine one thousand people on the beach with their towels and their picnics and their kids and their dogs and their floaties and their beer and their coolers and their garbage and their grandmothers and their sister-in-law's neighbor's ex-boyfriend's new boyfriend. And they all just decided it would be a really good idea to get off the beach NOW. With the children screaming, for effect. Even with the head start it took us a good ten minutes to get out of the parking lot and on the road. By then there was four inches of water running not only through some of the camp sites but actually through some of the tents. I don't usually laugh at others misfortunes but thinking back damn it was funny. Misses B. wonders why I never want to go camping...
Anyway spring weather here on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada can be kind of dicey. Global warming will make early planting an even riskier proposition because thunderstorms feed on warm air. But don't tell mom that. I mean mother nature. Last year I grew sunflowers in my garden, planting them about mid May as recommended. This year in early April sunflowers came up from the seeds that dropped on the ground last fall. Today on May 31st two weeks into the "growing season" the sunflowers are taller than I am. A little less than six feet!
Mother knows best.
Having six foot tall sunflowers this early in the spring should make the gardener in me happy. But it hasn't. I've been depressed. Some how writing about it makes me realize how wonderful it is.
Are those storm clouds?
OWL
May 31, 2007
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