Note to self.  Next year near the end of October, check weather.com on a daily basis to prevent forcing husband to get out of a nice warm bed to carry potted plants in at 1AM.  He apparently does not like this.

This morning I woke up to nearly a foot of snow… On April 7th… The day before Easter. AND IT IS STILL SNOWING! *argg*

What I really wanted to write about today was a little bit about my Lenten Rose, which had managed to actually bloom during Lent this year. I thought it would be a nice bookend to the Horseradish/Passover post.

I suppose I could still write about my Lenten Rose, but that would require me to dig the darn thing out out just to get a picture. Not much fun.

Besides, I am a little peeved by this whole snow situation. I bet this is going to get labeled in the News as the Great Easter Blizzard of ‘07, like it was something to be proud of. There is not a single great thing about it.

Snow in April is never anything to be proud of. Blizzards in April is something you should pretend isn’t happening for the sake of keeping up appearances with the neighbors. Do you think Columbus has snow in April? Well, maybe a little but you certainly don’t see them flaunting it like it is this week’s fashion.

Mother Nature in Cleveland just needs to get her act together. This is just sloppy work and is inexcusable. I am perfectly fine with temps in the 40s this time of year and rain galore, but this is ridiculous. April showers does not mean the snow variety.

They are predicting up to 4 inches again tonight. I suppose if I still wanted to have an Easter egg hunt outside, I could just toss the eggs out in the yard and just let Mother Nature hide them for me.

The other day, I posted about my despair on the devastation of my magnolia blossoms.

melissa c, a new reader (and I am thrilled to have her!), commented this:

Come on girl! Where is your faith? Miracles still happen!

It is not that I lack faith. As a matter of fact, my faith is particularly strong when it comes to Cleveland weather. I always have faith that it will change so quickly that it breaks land speed records.

I think that this is the most difficult part of living and gardening in Cleveland. I could take the cold, the early snow and the late frosts. I would never complain (well, maybe just a little) if I only had consistency. When winter is over, no more snow, no more ice. When fall is over in a beautiful nipping frost, no more sunny days with temps in the 80s. It’s just not fair.

It makes me want to stand out in my garden as if I am trying to recreate the breath taking scene in “A Walk in the Clouds” where they are trying to save the vinyards. If only I had Keanu Reeves to help me with that… *sigh*

Anyhoo, it invokes in me a manic guilt that if only I had done… SOMETHING to help them make it through that one or two days of cold, I might have been able to make my garden last just that much longer.

It takes alot of faith to garden in Cleveland. You just have to hope that you made wise choices in what you planted that can take Cleveland’s fickle ways.

Yesterday, it was 75F. Today, it was 70F. Tomorrow, it will be 40F. And by the weekend, it will be snowing. *sigh*This is Cleveland weather. The temperatures map like the electro cardiogram of a recent heart attack victim being hit with a defibrillator.

Well, the winter started out snowy enough. Big fluffy mound of snow had covered everything and then *BAM* (as they say in the cooking world), Mother Nature kicked it up a bit and it has been unseasonably warm here in Cleveland for the past few weeks.

Not only did we not have a white Christmas, we barely had a cold one.

Now, I could do the stereotypical thing and run around in circles like a chicken little lunatic screaming “The planet is warming! The planet is warming!”, but I am not going to do that. Mainly because this unusually warm winter is not surprising. I just wanted to remind everyone of the whole El Nino effect. I said there would be less snow, warmer weather for Cleveland. Boy, can I call them.

As far as the whole global warming thing goes, well, it is not to say that I don’t believe in it. I do, just not in the same way that it is often touted in the media.

I won’t deny that the planet is getting warmer. I won’t deny that ice caps will melt, break or otherwise find themselves indisposed. I am fairly certain that the face of the planet will shift and change due to temp changes and cause every which way inconveniences for New York city dwellers.

I just don’t think that this is as much of a man made issue as the media touts it to be. I mean let’s face it, these are the same people who brought us such imminent catastrophic disasters such as killer bees, Richter scale defying, city crushing earthquakes and giant meteors.

The real catastrophic disasters have caught the news media off guard every time. I never heard a word breathed about a tsunami until one actually happened. Planes flying into buildings lived only in Hollywood until a terribly fateful day. Prior to one awful hurricane, cities were never potentially reduced to rubble by floods. The news media’s prediction batting average isn’t all that great.

As shocking as some people may find this, this big planet earth has been warming and cooling dramatically and some times rapidly for, oh, the past few million millennia. Since man has only been around for few million years (including the time when we looked closer to chimps than modern man), it is hard to believe that we alone could have this effect on this planet. Or at least in any fashion greater than any creatures that came before us.

It is just slightly egotistical, if you ask me. I often wonder if civilization had developed during the ice age, what would mankind have said about when it ended. Would we have claimed that we were ending that as well? Beyond that, modern man was just a potential during the ice age. Was there some other life form alive that caused that massive change in weather?

It is not to say that I don’t think that we need to clean up our act. At a most basic level, dirty air is not healthy to breath. Add to that the fact the the new mall near my home was built on a massive mountain of a reclaimed landfill which just screams really wrong. These and many other health related issue makes me concerned about the environment, not the specters of climate change past, present and future.

I have been a gardener long enough to know that while I can influence Mother Nature, in the end she is just going to what she wants anyway. So I think it goes with global warming. We can take credit if we would like, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this would have happened in spite of us.

*sigh*

*sigh*

*sigh*

*doublesigh*

It is suppose to start snowing in the next 24 hours. This is depressing. Snow. SNOW. Fucking snow in early October! ARGGGGG!

The really sucky thing is that it suppose to go back up into the 60s by mid week. Everything will be dead and it will be beautiful weather. The irony is more than I can take.

*sigh*

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Today, I am officially giving up on the season tomatoes that I have growing in my garden. These are the few Hanna’s Tomato Tasting Tomatoes that have not yet been reviewed.

*sigh* I am just a little depressed about this because I paid good money for those tomato plants and they will not give up a single ripe tomato this season. A rational person may have blamed themselves for lack of foresight. After all, I live in Cleveland, the land of snow in June and heat waves in February. The land of trick-o-treating and Easter egg hunting being dates where you aren’t sure that you will be wearing snow pants or short pants. I should have known better.

But I really hate to blame myself for anything. I find that it creates a poor self image. So therefore, I am adopting the backwards but convenient logic of my 5 year old son and I am blaming the next logical persons in this case. Dick Goddard and Mark Johnson, Cleveland’s most visible weathermen. This is all their fault. If they had just predicted warmer weather for a little bit longer…

But what is done, is done, so I must face the facts and learn from this travesty.

Lesson for today kids, is “Don’t plant late season tomatoes in Cleveland (unless you are someone who find Las Vegas and racetracks to be fun places, then by all means, gamble on this too).

BTW, for those who are unfamiliar with the term late season tomato - Tomatoes fall into one of three categories, early, mid and late season. Because we gardeners are pretty literal people, these terms mean pretty much what they say. Early season tomatoes have the shortest maturation time and will be the first to produce ripe tomatoes in you garden. Mid season have a medium length of time to maturation and will produce ripe tomatoes mid season. And late season tomatoes have the longest maturation time and will produce tomatoes last. You are really suppose to plant at least one of each in your garden to ensure that you get tomatoes all season.

While technically, according to zone maps and definition) the weather here in Cleveland should support late season tomatoes easily, the reality is that with our erratic weather here, late season tomatoes are a gamble. The good news is that if Ohio’s “Earn (sic Gamble) and Learn” initiative passes, we will be one step closer to being able to lay odds and take bets on the likelihood of a late season tomato producing fruit. I might then be able to recoup my losses from betting on them by planting them.

Either way, at this point in time, I think that I will just keep from planting late season tomatoes in my garden. There is nothing more heartbreaking than waiting for a whole season to sample a new tomato only to discover that Mother Nature and the Cleveland Weathermen have conspired to steal them from you.

The cold weather has made it abundantly clear that it has no intention of leaving Cleveland. I thought that perhaps this cold spell had come too early but today when I checked the first frost I saw that I was wrong. Cleveland’s first frost date is October 5th. Less than a week away. It is only my over hopeful mind that thought this cold snap had come too early. *sigh*

I really have no choice but to admit that my gardening season has come to an end. Two of my remaining tomatoes are DOA and the other three have borne fruit but their unfortunate young will probably never mature to the point where they would make their mama proud in a tasty bruschetta or sauce.

The potted plants on the porch will need to be moved soon and I can already see the long eye my husband will be giving me when I tell him that it is time to move everything to the basement. The one thing that you can count on with plants is that they only get bigger as long as you give them the love that they need. That makes me happy, but I am not quite so sure my “lifts heavy things” husband is as thrilled.

I noticed today that the trees are turning as well. Going all golden but the lovers’ quarrel is coming soon and the red blood of summer will soon be smearing the trees. Just about the only good things from the past two weeks of rainy, cold weather is that it should makes for one hell of a good fight. In other words, the trees should look really pretty here for the next few weeks.

So why do I sound so glum? Because I live in Cleveland and winter, he is a comin’. A few days ago, Pinar asked in a comment if I had any winter flower plants. Above is the picture of what my back yard will look like in just a few short months, maybe even weeks, if we happen to have a particularly early snowfall this year. It’s Cleveland. My backyard could possible look like that next week, if the weather gods are feeling particularly cruel.

So, no… Nothing flowers outside in Cleveland in the winter. *doublesigh*

Hanna did a happy dance in the car this morning. Researchers are reporting the return of the weather affecting ocean current better known as El Nino!

Able to suppress hurricanes and ski seasons in a single shift, this super power of the weather world has decided to grace us once again with his presence.

So why am I happy? Well, this is a quote from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) press release about the return of El Nino:

…warmer-than-average temperatures over western and central Canada, and over the western and northern United States… drier-than-average conditions can be expected in the Ohio Valley and the Pacific Northwest.

Do you know what that means for Cleveland? It means that hopefully we will have a warmer winter and not as much snow. Although the snow thing is pretty iffy, as most of our snow fall comes from lake effect or from the Michigan/Canada area, but Ohio Valley is not too far below us and it may effect us.

Anyhoo, as a dedicated freeze bunny, I am happy to cheer on anything that will make Cleveland a warmer place. Plus, it means that I may get to pretend for a another winter that I live in zone 6 instead of zone five. More survivors in my garden is always a good thing.

But my dear El Nino has a dark side. A severe El Nino effect can cause drought, flooding and extreme temperature changes in some parts of the world. Farmers in Australia are so fearful of the news of El Nino’s return that apparently there was a run on sheep in the slaughter markets yesterday after the information was released. The farmers cited the fear of El Nino driven drought and grain famine for the sell off.

But scientists are saying that so far, this only appears to be a mild case of El Nino, which I think is good. El Nino on a nice Prozac/Valium/Lithium cocktail. Just enough so he is pleasant company here but not a raging weather psychotic elsewhere.

You know, you’d think that something called a “tropical storm” would be a little less chilly. It has been a cold day while the land beaten remnants of Tropical Storm Ernesto have moved over us. Today’s high is 58F. No slightly chilly breezes today. Autumn has kicked open the door and announced she will be staying the weekend.

My garden is in a state of anticipatory suspension. It is like every flower and vegetable is holding its breath waiting to see if this is The End. The tomatoes are filled with frustratingly almost ripe fruit that refuse, in the lack of heat, to ripen any further. It is enough to make a gardener scream.

There is not much to do today except throw on a sweater, pour a glass of wine, watch the rain come down and contemplate my place in this big garden we call life.

I hate cold. I am not a cold weather person. Yeah, I know, then what the hell am I doing in Cleveland? I’m here because I am in love with a very warm hearted (and warm bodied, I might add) man who loves this city. If the world were a perfect place, Cleveland would be magically whisked away to a Caribbean island and the Browns and Indians would win championships at least once a decade.

But, the world is not magical. I think that is why I love to garden. Because, in a garden, I can pretend there is magic. There are fairies and sprites, gremlins and goblins. Creatures that shy away from me but leave me treasures in the forms of breath taking flowers and ambrosial foods. Other equally retiring creatures destroy all the good work that I do for no other reason than it is good for an hour’s entertainment.

Scientifically, I know why my plants grow (or die), but some primal heart inside me still knows that all that science stuff is a big pile of hooey. It’s fairies, damn it. I tell you all it’s fairies who make my garden grow.

And maybe tonight, since it is so unusually cold and wet, I will leave a little thimble of Jack Daniels out by the back door. Something for them to drink while they watch the cold rain come down. I imagine even Cleveland fairies dream of warmer places too, on chilly days like today.

Photograph by Shane Grundy.