Vegetable garden is doing well. Zucchini glut? Check. Tomatoes? Check. Lettuce getting overwrought? A little...
The thing is, I'm in the Seattle area. Summer doesn't usually start until July 1. In fact, I remember wearing a winter coat to work on the Summer Solstice more than once. But the recent summer temperatures aren't what bother me -- it's the winter ones that give me pause.
My yard is in a state of transition. I am converting it to something more drought resistant, in case the winters become warmer. If it looks good, I'll post pictures next spring when it's finished. In the meantime, I will yammer about the dryness. That, and I am sad because I will give up a bunch of my beautiful lilies and irises, in order to save water.
The current dry weather in the Pacific Northwest is something that will get waved away by climate deniers. The integrated amount of rain we get from year to year is probably about the same. How could there possibly be a drought emergency??? Well, how indeed?
It's the watersheds. In the PNW, we have a wet season and a dry season. In the past, the snowpack accumulation from the (wet) winters would melt to provide watershed for the rivers, streams, and springs in the (dry) summer. This also determines when the rivers swell and when the rivers shrink -- and all of this crazy mother nature stuff must work to support the gorgeous life around me.
Well, we're having warm winters here recently, and it's messing up everything. In fact, Governor Jay Inslee declared the entire state of Washington to be in a state of drought emergency. (Last year, if I recall correctly, it was only Central Washington that was in a state of emergency.)
Our ecosystems are fragile, and it won't take too many consecutive warm winters and dry watersheds to change climate here -- a whole lot. Even now I have ground cover that I couldn't beat off with a stick in prior years acting frail and dying off everywhere. But, I expect I am preaching to the choir.
Today I want to share a couple of photo images with you that compare a high mountain pass in 2014 to the same spots in 2015. 2014 was a warm winter, but 2015 was even warmer...
Kendall Katwalk:
This is right next to a mountain pass, and isn't passable (usually) until late July or so.
Here is one shot of the trail area in late June 2014 -- which was impassable to (non-technical) hikers (like me) and under 6 feet of snow.
And nearly the same place on the trail mid-May 2015:
Here is another place on the Kendall Katwalk trail June 2014:
And nearly the same place on the trail mid-May 2015:
And lastly, I want to post a picture of Lake Serene from mid-April 2015:
I don't have a 2014 comparison, because it is usually impossible to get up to Lake Serene in April. Mr. rb137 decided to try it this year to see what the snowpack looked like. Not only was there no snow, but the lake wasn't even frozen.
I hope for colder winters in the upcoming years, but I'm not optimistic...
What's going on in your garden? Are you doing any drought mitigation?