Do you know the yearly season dates? I know the longest/shortest day of the year. I know summer starts on May 26 at 1:10pm and that fall comes earlier this year at August 10 at 8:30am. I know March brings gusty winds, July humid weather, August hurricanes, and October cooler evenings. I know there is always a bitter cold snap around Spring Break no matter how late in the year it is and sometimes there is even a cold snap as late as Easter. What I do not have stored in the card catalog of knowledge are the seasonal dates.
Winter: Tuesday, December 21 2021 – Sunday, March 20, 2022
Spring: Sunday, March 20 -Tuesday, June 21
Summer: Tuesday, June – Thursday, September 21
Fall: Thursday, September 21 – Wednesday, December 21

Winter came late and left early to Boxes in Fields this year. The temperatures had been falling steadily since the first of October but true cold did not come with its fury like the Great Freeze of 2021.

Instead it was a cold snap here, a cold snap there, and warm spring like temperatures in between. Instead it was huddled around the space heater here, wrapping living spaces in plastic to protect against the never ending winds there, and flips flops and shorts in between.

Roller coaster cold days makes plants spring to early, bolt to soon, and freeze when we temperatures fell below expected lows and frost settled longer than just a few hours.

Higher than average temperature days caused warm summer critters like snakes and bees to come out and play and then become to cold to go back away.

Spring had officially arrived when the winter geese were seen with their oxygen masks in the sky headed back north. Seriously, how they can fly at plane altitudes with oxygen assistance is amazing.

Spring flowers, if they came, have already perished and the usual color bloom is bleak. There are just the few buttercups (pink and white) and the way to soon flowering of the bramble berry plants.

Temperatures have gone from winter to summer and now my once beautiful bolting mustard greens are covered in a bumper crop of aphids. Here it is the last week in March and the daily temperatures are in the low 80s with expected highs to be in the low 90s weeks end. In order for pest bugs to be killed off, the temperatures must drop below freezing for days on end. Not days here, there, and everywhere.

In fact, the only thing of color are the plants bought from the local plant store. One is native with no bees or butterflies flittering by it yet. The other is not native and probably with die with the humidity level but does give off a wonderful view while it lasts. And yes, when rubbed the leaves smell better than any high quality oil off the shelf!

And to top off the already too hot temperatures, there has been less than 3″ of rain since the beginning of the year. It has been mentioned many times and I am gonna mention it again, in order to maintain water levels, Boxes in Fields needs its average rain of 32″ to come in semi-equal rain showers and it would be best if the rain could fall at 1″-2″ per month. Instead, we are dry, and windy, and warm. Way, way too warm.