First frost

Beyond welcoming an opportunity to muse about the weather, I am influenced by the personal journals from a century or two ago which can show us how much local climates and microclimates have changed over time. Modern science is excellent at recording and analyzing numbers, so we hear a lot about air temperatures and ocean temperatures and permafrost depth. Satellite imagery has shown us that very small temperature changes over the last few decades are happening concurrently with large areas of North American greening up two or three weeks earlier in the spring. Plants are sensitive to temperature in different ways than people are, or perhaps other factors are causing this earlier greening. But little of this tells us how late the snapdragons bloom in the fall, or when the swans stop keeping sentry on the river next to us, or how long we’ll have to wait for the columbine to return. Those things we learn from notes and hints in personal journals.

This morning was the first daybreak with real frost on the ground. The more delicate blooms in our garden have shriveled overnight, but the snapdragons do not appear to be affected. It was not a hard frost last night, just enough for the plants to take notice. The low angle sun is glittering off the field, and a tree by the entrance to the field is hurling its leaf stalks at the ground (and me, and the dog) with an assertive and continuous clatter.