Please read this...Spring-time weather in November?

<p class="p1">You know it's wet outside when a frog comes inside...</p><p class="p1">Last Thursday, in the early hours of a dark and stormy night (I've always wanted to use those four words in a real, live sentence), we opened the door to let the cat back inside. There was no reasonable explanation as to why she wanted to go out on such a night. Then again, she's a cat. Reasonable and cat would be a bit of an oxymoron.</p><p class="p1">Anyway, the cat scooted back inside in a flash of calico. She was accompanied by a frog. Really. A hopping amphibian. As far as I know, we had never had an amphibian of any sort invite itself into our house. Not on Halloween. Not during an election year. Never.</p><p class="p1">Little froggy hopped under our dining room table. And paused. Bad move. The Other Half nabbed the critter, and escorted it back out into the dark and stormy night. (Wow. Twice in one masterpiece.) </p><p class="p1">The arrival of last Thursday night's wet weather was not unexpected. When you look at a weather forecast, and the forecast tells you that there is a 100 percent chance of rain...well, you might as well get out an umbrella, or just plan on getting wet.</p><p class="p1">Around midday last Thursday, when composition of this silliness started, I happened to take a look out the window in my space at The Paragraph Factory. The sun was shining on an unusually warm and humid November morning. </p><p class="p1">Such conditions might have seemed right in, say, July or August, but not November. That's probably why the weather experts were warning all of us in the Heartland, wherever that is, about the potential for severe weather.</p><p class="p1">The oddball November weather should not be all that surprising this year. Winter lasted until about June and was followed by those downpours of Biblical proportions which we've discussed previously in this space.</p><p class="p1">The weather, in a word, or two, was bad news, really bad news, for those who enjoy gardening. I believe I shared with you folks at some point during the growing season, which lasted for approximately 43 minutes one afternoon during the first week of August, that The Other Half's gardening had not gone well in 2015.</p><p class="p1">Our "harvest" for the year totaled approximately 27 sweet pea pods, 35 strawberries, 42 green beans, 52 purple green beans (please do not ask me to explain purple green beans), 14 tomatoes and 5 blueberries. </p><p class="p1">Peppers seemed to do well this year. We had more habanero peppers than any single human being needed. In other words, one of 'em. Actually, they did very well this year, and they were very colorful. However, given that I value my tongue and lips, I decided to forego consuming those little, bright red balls of fire.</p><p class="p1">Poblano peppers did well, too. And, for some odd reason, they seemed to get hotter and hotter as we got closer and closer to the cool days of autumn. Go figure. </p><p class="p1">The mosquito crop in The Other Half's garden did well in 2015. Same goes for groundhogs. And lady bugs. Almost makes one want to find a recipe for mosquito, groundhog, ladybug stew. Hmmm. Maybe I'll check Google. Or Alphabet. Or whatever it's called now.</p><p class="p1">I guess the good thing is that we can always look forward to next year. Things will be better. Things are always better next year. Right?</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p2"> </p>

Bugs buzzing around in November? You bet. This one made a stop on a flower in The Other Half's garden. We'll see if they are still buzzing around a month from now.



Somehow, we are going to have to figure out how to make it through the winter with one lonely, forlorn head of cauliflower. And maybe a few green tomatoes which were still growing in the garden on the fifth day of November.