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Frost on the Forsythia, rain under the carport — what strange times these be?

Wed, 02/06/2019 - 12:00 am

It’s been really cold in our part of North Texas this year.›Here in the “dead of winter,” when the frost is windows and the dog has to be carried down her handicap-ramp because it’s too slick, flowers are blooming.› What’s happening?›Is this the End Times? Has the world gone mad? Is it Global Warming and Global Freezing at the same time?

I walked out this morning and found water dripping from the underside of my carport.›Now, that’s odd. Here is a piece of engineering that is supposed to keep moisture off my car and there is a constant drip making little puddles on the ground, the top of my car and door handle, onto which I’m about to put my nice, dry gloves. I checked to see if I had a leak. It wasn’t raining. The sky was blue. Where did this water come from?I’ve had this carport for about ten years and in that time the only thing that has dripped from the underside is a few splatters from a bunch of as-yetto-be housebroken baby birds.›But today, when it’s about thirty degrees outside, my carport is dripping.

Although I’ve spent the last few weeks wearing so many layers of clothing that it’s difficult to bend my knees, the japonica bush outside my front window is covered in delicate little pink blossoms. That’s not supposed to happen in January. This plant, also called a flowering quince, needs to quit it. Because just as it gets started, we’ll get a hard freeze and it will return to the dead variety from “quince” it came. Will it bloom again in early March (when it is supposed to)? Not quite.This is my quandary.

We always have a few sprigs of winter grass coming up, but this year I’m a little worried. My yard looks green. If the city “beautification police” come by, they may fine me for letting my grass get too long — in January. I can just see those orange-suited trustees out there with their teeth chattering in the wind-chill of minus five degrees, trying to get their mowers to cut my grass back to the standard height — while I’m out trying to come up with bail money.

I know, it’s not that bad. But we did see a forsythia in full bloom on the way home from church. The forsythia is that loopybranched bush that is covered in bright yellow flowers — in March. We are just now sticking our toes into the first weekend in February.›It’s supposed to be white in January and February. Trees are supposed to be brown. We should not be mowing in January and February. We should be sitting inside, drinking hot chocolate and thinking of ways to spend that thirty dollars a week we had to spend last summer when the grass grew so fast that my “guy” couldn’t keep up with it.

Maybe it’s a conspiracy.› Maybe the Martians or the Russians or the big chemical companies have banded together to drive us crazy. What will we do in late February when we should be putting down pre-emergent weed killer? It is pre-emergent if the weeds have already bloomed? Maybe I should be turning on the sprinkler, getting out the lawn furniture, and trying on that bathing suit from last summer.›After all, if the japonica is blooming, can June be far behind?