Living in the high desert offers a bunch of different challenges, one of which being the big temperature swings. This takes its toll not only on people and animals but also on plants and vegitation. It can be 120*F in the summer for a couple weeks on end and then a few weeks of sub freezing in the winter time. Thankfully it does not snow hardly at all in the city. In fact our airport does not have a snow plow!
Oh I know… There are those of you who live where it is freezing all winter long. My uncle lives in Rhinelander, Wisconsin where today, March 25th, it will get down to -2*F and it is like that much of the year.
I guess nature must know what it is doing yet often times I question it. I will forget to cover the plants outside and next thing I know I go out and the plants are all wilted or hard. This if followed by the “Oh, I guess I will have to replant in spring” guilt. Then, in desperation, I cover them with an old container for plants and place a rock on top and promise to come back when Jack Frost goes away.
Later when warmth returns and I remove the cover, I still find a dead looking plant. I don’t know what I expect to find really. So the “Oh, I guess I will have to replant in spring” guilt returns.
The part that makes me smile? Most of the plants end up surviving. That moment when I realize they are no longer just a bunch of brown sticks coming out of the ground but now these plants are brown sticks with little bits of green popping out.
Yeah! Victory. We beat Jack Frost.
Or maybe it is just that Mother Nature knows what she is doing.
Either way it makes me smile.