I'll admit it. I'm not much of an environmentalist. Oh, I accept the science of global warming and I understand the seriousness of the situation. I do my part to recycle. I bring my own bags to the store, I avoid buying wasteful packaging, and, as a preschool teacher, re-use as much as I can in my classroom.
But climate change has never really been a passion, until now.
Something very strange is happening in my garden.
I live on Long Island, New York. Right now we are in the middle of a major heat wave- not very rare for us, although most of the heat waves occur in August. We have not seen rain in a long time. (I live out on the east end for those Kossacks in Nassau County lucky enough to get soaked last week.) So now most of my time is spent in my garden watering my wilting babies.
But June was cool for June. April and May were very inconsistent. The rainy 'season' was late, and we got more than we needed back then. And I do clearly remember stating a few time last month that "it feels like September".
It smelled like September. You know, that crisp chilly air at sundown, even though the day had been warm. I still had my comforter on my bed, and while several friends and family members would embark on "how crazy is this weather?" conversations, they usually ended with the cliche "Can't do anything about it."
Well, someone tell me what I can do about this. On July 7- in 97 degree heat, my mums are budding. Last week saw the last of the Day Lily blooms, and rudbeckia are also showing little yellow heads.
None of these plants should be flowering until late August/early September. The mums usually last until October.
And yet they are all maturing now.
My only guess is that they too thought it 'smelled like September' and just followed the scheduled growth pattern.
It's just too weird and scary- to walk through a garden and see everything out of season. I feel like the "dah dah dah dah's" of the Twilight Show theme should be playing in the background. And what would my garden look like in August?
So now I'm very curious- and I've started to research. And watch out- because I can get very loud.