I often brag about my garden titled 2011 Monet Vision. I am proud of the scene I’ve created in my own little piece of the world.
Today, I took another photograph for the record. Wait, what is wrong with the photo? Can you tell? This garden is in Frankfort, IL, and it is November 5. The trees are bare, the tall grasses are brown, many of the shrubs have dropped leaves. Dead foliage lays between plants waiting for me to rake and pile them on the mulch heap. The water lilies are dormant as are all the other aquatic plants. So what is different?
The begonias, marigolds, and lobelia are still blooming. Where is the killing frost? By this time in year’s past we have had a killing frost that would take out the annuals. My breathing must be extra heavy and I’m exhaling too much carbon dioxide. Yeah that’s it. I’m watching too many young women (anyone under sixty qualifies for that) and they are making my heart go pitter-patter and raising my carbon footprint, thus warming the globe.
Yep, that’s it, too much CO2. I have to put the blinders on to make the weather behave more normally. What is normal for November in Frankfort? I Googled temperature records and learned that in 1977 it reached seventy-seven degrees in November. Wow! In 1977 I drove a VW that got 35 mpg. I must have breathed real heavy to outgas that extra CO2 to warm things up that much. The opposite occurred in 1958, the low temperature dipped to “ZERO.” I must have reversed the process and consumed CO2 during that year to effect Global cooling of that magnitude.
Record highs and lows don’t really give us a clear picture of November weather. Averages do a little better. November average temperatures range from 48F high to 32F low. This November has been slightly higher with more days in the fifties, but I’m sure that will change in a few days. Most likely we will catch up with degree days and freeze with colder temps.
So what does all this have to do with the picture? Nothing, it just means that I got lucky this year and got to see my flowers bloom a little longer than in past years.
Here is what 2011 Monet Vision looked like a few weeks ago.
2011 Monet Vision
Filed under: Garden, Memories, Satire, Warm and Fuzzy | Tagged: Carbon Cycle, Carbon Dioxide, Claude Monet, Environment, Frankfort Illinois, Global, Temperature | 1 Comment »
