By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
Spring has arrived in the Pea Patch, even though patches of snow and ice are still melting in the deepest corners of the woods. The birds woke me this morning, their collective enthusiasm louder than I remember in months, and here and there dainty daffies are poking up, lending bright spots of yellow to a landscape still dressed in winter’s colors. The season was mild this year, as it was last, but not without its extreme events. That’s the new true: extreme. That’s what we’ve created with our carbon problems and that’s what we must learn to live with.
I usually wait until 0 degrees Aries to give my houseplants their first sip of liquid encouragement (fertilizer), giving them a leg up on production of new leaves and buds, but not this year. They beat me to it, the asparagus ferns sending up new shoots weeks ago, the spiders as well. It’s a fact that nature’s timetable has moved itself ahead by three or so weeks, at least around here, and the notion that we can “adjust” time by turning our clocks ahead an hour is silliness. Light does what light does. My three outside dogs come in at dusk: three weeks ago, that was six o’clock. Now it’s closer to eight and likely to spin out longer in the coming days.
The deer won’t be coming in so close in the evening, I suspect, waiting to forage until the moon is high in the sky and the dogs safely inside. The red fox down the road won’t drop by for a drink just after the sun goes down, the chipmunks and squirrels will no longer use the fenced yard as a shortcut. Here in the Patch — and no doubt, across the planet — plants, animals and humans are all struggling to adjust to a changing terrascape, a potent reminder that we humans aren’t comfortable with change. We like to think we know what to expect, some of us so we can navigate circumstances, some so we can protect against them. We spent centuries learning how to succeed within the traditional norms, those in the Western world accustomed to survival at the top of the food chain. We made an art of it and culturized ourselves around those expectations.