A SNOW-LESS Winter in Bahstin...

I'm thinking with 8 weeks left of January and February, there's plenty of time for a deep freeze to hit. I'm enjoying the 40s while we have 'em.

dunno what the january 6th record is, but they said it might hit 65...

soz :
from our experience in eastern ontario ... we've always had more bugs of all kinds after a mild winter .
our weather service has actually warned that a continuing mild winter might result in a greater risk of 'west nile virus' carrying mosquitoes .
hbg YIKES !

Not sure, but there is also a problem that the black bears in NH are not hibernating as a result of the warmer temperatures. If anything these will make pretty nasty tired bears.

Here is an article I found about hibernating animals and warm temps…
Frogs and other animals that usually hibernate in winter may be very weak by spring because of this winter's balmy temperatures, says an Ottawa researcher.
What we suspect is going to happen is that as springtime comes, these animals will have run out of fuels and they'll either die, they'll not be able to reproduce, or they will have some other catastrophic event.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/01/05/hibernate.html

Well, those of us in the 50's and older can enjoy these warmer winter days as well you youngsters :wink:

(Nice new avatar, btw, JPB)

40s - Boston is 62 right now!

Thanks, Walter. I noticed today that my parsley is still growing, my sage bushes are still mostly green, and the tarragon shoots are coming up. Fresh herbs, anyone?

We've still some geranias and asterns with blossoms outside.

I lived in Boston for too many years. Now I live in Southern California where it never snows and people cry about the cold when it's 55. The past few days have been in the 70's but today it's only in the 60's. Brrr!

3am ET, and the temp has dropped a mere 4 degrees...

found a disoriented beetle on the living room floor this evening...

snow, we got a skiff of snow overnight which I'm sure will melt during the day but it just keeps adding up. The trash man didn't come yesterday.

Well, I was mainly thinking of all the WI cows. There're worms we don't see a lot of here because of the winter freeze that common in the south and way out west.

Only had one good freeze here, and I think that was actually in early November. Plenty of time for the pastures to get recontaminated, I'd think.

Ugh.

I talked to E.G. about this too and he said that the bug guy we had come inspect the place had told him that every year it gets warmer and every year the bugs come further north. That he (bug guy) was seeing Florida bugs now, bugs he'd never seen before in Columbus in 20 years.

Yeah, same thing with a number of veterinary diseases. There's been an increase in heartworm cases in WI dogs in the last couple of years (at least in the number that come into the hospital here), and the initial reaction was to ascribe it to the large influx of infected dogs after hurricane Katrina. But I can't help but think that the warming's got something to do with it, at least in terms of supporting spread of infection once infected dogs get moved here.

The local old-timers definitely note that the lakes freeze later and thaw earlier than they used to.

CARE FOR SOME OF GRANNIES POSSUM STEW ?
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seems that pretty soon we'll be able to make some of grannies (the hillbillies) famous possum stew up here in the north .
you got a kettle ready for it ?
hbg
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University of Vermont zoologist Bill Kilpatrick begged his students for years to bring him dead opossums.

It's not that the genial former Texan has any particular love of opossums. It's that the cat-sized animal has been slowly making its way north through the Champlain Valley, and Kilpatrick kept tabs on its migration, in part, by tracking road-killed animals. Kilpatrick suspects two factors for the migration: global warming and increased availability of food.

They are very opportunistic, and my guess is that global warming has something to do with pushing them farther north,'' Kilpatrick said.

Animals migrate and expand their range for many reasons. The cormorant population on Lake Champlain has exploded in the past decade, for example, because more birds are thriving in the southern United States, where they spend the winter. Global warming might become another reason why animals move.

Scientists believe human activities are causing the Earth's climate to warm. Along with rising sea levels and shifts in ecosystems, scientists predict that animals, too, will respond to the change by moving north.

While there's no way to prove that is what's happening with opossums, it's clear they've moved up the Champlain Valley, Kilpatrick said. By 1988, the opossum arrived in Kilpatrick's back yard. That's when the first one was found in Burlington. By 1995, opossums had migrated all the way to Montreal.

source :
...OPOSSUMS MOVING NORTH...

I am sure that within the next couple of weeks Boston will be dumped on with snow. Mark my words. You guys are gonna get buried.

maybe so, Nick, maybe so.

but i'd take it after today's spectacular 68º, which shattered the old jan 6th record of 62º ...

I have a snowdrop blooming, three and a half weeks early. I also have a small patch of spindly toadstools and some sprouting sunflower seed.

Passing down wind of the compost tumbler, I noticed that the warm weather has the compost "working" again.


The times are out of joint.

Heard on the radio today that a local shelter for homeless kittens is having a major flea problem and they're blaming it on the warm weather.