Winter Anomalies - warm weather brings signs of life

Now that winter is finally with us, do you remember Wednesday, Feb.1? Temperatures soared to above 60 degrees.
A good day to haul manure, dig holes for plants and watch a honey bee.
I worked up a good sweat on that day wheel barrowing loads of manure to another raised garden bed. The manure was just too heavy and hot for even earth worms to survive in the original bed. No odor now, thank goodness.
Spreading the manure between two beds and adding bags of soil should welcome earth worms and the plants I hope to sow in the spring—or earlier.
In the future we may have no need of little seed starter pots in the house
in March.
Creatures and plants were confused with this warm weather. The Whooping Cranes returned to their stomping grounds a month early. On that warm day, a honey bee was out of his hive searching for pollen. He buzzed my bright socks time and again
looking for nectar. Hungry mosquitoes were out searching for blood. Daffodils
were four and five inches out of the ground greeting the warmth with buds.
On that warm day, I heard the melodious song of an Eastern Bluebird. Then looking up in the leafless trees, I saw him. Although bluebirds are one of the earliest migratory birds to return, the first day of February is surely a record.

He was checking out the bluebird house I have next to the field. I hurriedly got some water and cleaned out the debris left by birds who have been using it as a winter motel. But then I watched as the spatzees drove the bluebird away. Spatzees are the neighborhood bird bullies.
Now that cold has returned, the warmth of Feb. 1 seems like a vague memory. Maybe it is a time to think of what we can do to help our children survive the warming trend.
Can we teach our children how our grandparents survived the great depression and the world wars? For sure, our mindset cannot remain the same as climate change begins to wreck sporadic havoc. Will larger, more intense weather catastrophes happen? It’s difficult to dwell on the risks in our future, instead I have hope. I
am full of joy and gratefulness for that warm first of February with its springtime surprises. Or was it winter anomalies? I just hope we don’t pay for it this summer.
Psalm 31:24 “Be strong and take heart, all of you who hope in the Lord.”