I wasn't going to anyway, but no one around here will be. I did plant potatoes on St. Pat's in 2012 under very pleasant conditions. Not only has it been possible the last few years, but it was often possible when I was a boy, though we usually waited until closer to the end of the month. One year that it wasn't an option was 1960 which had a fairly normal winter, to the best of my recollection, until about the 22nd of February. We had a month of snowy, icy, frozen mayhem before the ground became visible on the 22nd of March.
I think they used to call it "weather".
By the way, one of my neighbors dropped by last fall to share some heirloom "vining okra" seeds (which I will try out this year and report on, the Lord willing). He told me that he had seen a hornet's nest in one of his fruit trees that was very close to the ground. The ones I've run across are usually eight to ten or twelve feet up. I think he said this one was around five feet off the ground.
"You know what that means?"
"Bad winter?" I ventured.
"Yep," he said. I saw him a couple of weeks ago and reminded him of that exchange, acknowledging that his sign had proven accurate.
Nice view there! Same view over here. We got some heavy sleety icy snowy stuff. Enough to cover the grass.
ReplyDeleteWe better be growing heirloom mammoths soon. The ice age is coming! I know so, cuz.. lots of spiders in the bathroom and a bad acorn crop. Yep, that's it.
Is a bad acorn crop not many acorns or a whole lot of acorns as potentially painful projectiles from the mower chute? The latter is what I had last fall. I should have a bumper crop of squirrels when the season opens in a couple of months.
ReplyDeleteOne of my nephews is a professor of something or other at a well-known university. He knows all about cloning. I think he has cloned rabbits and sheep. I don't know if he has gotten any wooly mammoth DNA to try yet. If he grows one, I'll see if I can't get us a couple. They would be some awesome stump-pullers.