A Poor Year for Raspberries

TIME magazine has an article on drought. Illinois is not one of the areas marked as suffering from drought. But we've had very little rain this year. There are quarter-inch-wide cracks in the soil. My flowers and herbs are wilting even though I water them daily. Even the weeds are wilting. Now, this sort of thing is not uncharacteristic for our area -- but it usually happens in mid-July to late August. This year it started in late May.

The wild strawberries didn't fruit at all, that I can see. Half their leaves are crinkled and brown already. There are very few raspberries. The black ones are tiny, hard, and sour. I've found a few yellow ones that were edible, but they are still small and scanty. Maybe if it rains later in the season, the second crop of yellows will be worthwhile. The blackberries look to be faring no better than the black raspberries. No pie cherries, either; I don't eat those, but someone else was interested in them for homebrewing. There are mulberries on the trees, but nothing darker than red, and almost none on the ground. I suspect the birds are devouring all of them as soon as they get half-ripe ... possibly because some other food source(s) is scarce or absent.

Today the weather was hot and humid. We had a few lethargic drops of rain in the afternoon, and a stingy sprinkle this evening. We may get more later ... but probably won't.

There is a pervasive sense of wrongness about the weather now. It's been increasing for years. I'm not really all that old, but the changes in my lifetime have been dramatic and alarming. The spring and fall rains are all but gone. The heavy winter snows are gone, dwindled to occasional flurries and one or two big storms a year. There are more ice storms, though. Summers, oddly, are a little cooler, sometimes dryer but on the whole I think they're actually wetter. We got flooded in during summer, several years running. That never used to happen; floods were a spring/fall phenomenon. Everything is haywire.

The animal species are changing -- birds and insects especially. Old ones disappearing, new ones moving in. I saw Boston orioles last year. A hive of honeybees has moved into a tree near our house. I'd be thrilled if they were in a lower-traffic area. Last year I tried encouraging them to leave, but they didn't. This year, I'm so worried about the crashing bee population, I don't have the heart to pressure them. They haven't bothered anyone yet; hopefully they won't.

I don't understand how people can be so blind, deaf, and numb that they don't notice any of the changes in the world around them. I feel for the polar bears on their shrinking ice floes.

I feel like a polar bear on a shrinking ice floe.

A Poor Year for Raspberries

TIME magazine has an article on drought. Illinois is not one of the areas marked as suffering from drought. But we've had very little rain this year. There are quarter-inch-wide cracks in the soil. My flowers and herbs are wilting even though I water them daily. Even the weeds are wilting. Now, this sort of thing is not uncharacteristic for our area -- but it usually happens in mid-July to late August. This year it started in late May.

The wild strawberries didn't fruit at all, that I can see. Half their leaves are crinkled and brown already. There are very few raspberries. The black ones are tiny, hard, and sour. I've found a few yellow ones that were edible, but they are still small and scanty. Maybe if it rains later in the season, the second crop of yellows will be worthwhile. The blackberries look to be faring no better than the black raspberries. No pie cherries, either; I don't eat those, but someone else was interested in them for homebrewing. There are mulberries on the trees, but nothing darker than red, and almost none on the ground. I suspect the birds are devouring all of them as soon as they get half-ripe ... possibly because some other food source(s) is scarce or absent.

Today the weather was hot and humid. We had a few lethargic drops of rain in the afternoon, and a stingy sprinkle this evening. We may get more later ... but probably won't.

There is a pervasive sense of wrongness about the weather now. It's been increasing for years. I'm not really all that old, but the changes in my lifetime have been dramatic and alarming. The spring and fall rains are all but gone. The heavy winter snows are gone, dwindled to occasional flurries and one or two big storms a year. There are more ice storms, though. Summers, oddly, are a little cooler, sometimes dryer but on the whole I think they're actually wetter. We got flooded in during summer, several years running. That never used to happen; floods were a spring/fall phenomenon. Everything is haywire.

The animal species are changing -- birds and insects especially. Old ones disappearing, new ones moving in. I saw Boston orioles last year. A hive of honeybees has moved into a tree near our house. I'd be thrilled if they were in a lower-traffic area. Last year I tried encouraging them to leave, but they didn't. This year, I'm so worried about the crashing bee population, I don't have the heart to pressure them. They haven't bothered anyone yet; hopefully they won't.

I don't understand how people can be so blind, deaf, and numb that they don't notice any of the changes in the world around them. I feel for the polar bears on their shrinking ice floes.

I feel like a polar bear on a shrinking ice floe.

A Poor Year for Raspberries

TIME magazine has an article on drought. Illinois is not one of the areas marked as suffering from drought. But we've had very little rain this year. There are quarter-inch-wide cracks in the soil. My flowers and herbs are wilting even though I water them daily. Even the weeds are wilting. Now, this sort of thing is not uncharacteristic for our area -- but it usually happens in mid-July to late August. This year it started in late May.

The wild strawberries didn't fruit at all, that I can see. Half their leaves are crinkled and brown already. There are very few raspberries. The black ones are tiny, hard, and sour. I've found a few yellow ones that were edible, but they are still small and scanty. Maybe if it rains later in the season, the second crop of yellows will be worthwhile. The blackberries look to be faring no better than the black raspberries. No pie cherries, either; I don't eat those, but someone else was interested in them for homebrewing. There are mulberries on the trees, but nothing darker than red, and almost none on the ground. I suspect the birds are devouring all of them as soon as they get half-ripe ... possibly because some other food source(s) is scarce or absent.

Today the weather was hot and humid. We had a few lethargic drops of rain in the afternoon, and a stingy sprinkle this evening. We may get more later ... but probably won't.

There is a pervasive sense of wrongness about the weather now. It's been increasing for years. I'm not really all that old, but the changes in my lifetime have been dramatic and alarming. The spring and fall rains are all but gone. The heavy winter snows are gone, dwindled to occasional flurries and one or two big storms a year. There are more ice storms, though. Summers, oddly, are a little cooler, sometimes dryer but on the whole I think they're actually wetter. We got flooded in during summer, several years running. That never used to happen; floods were a spring/fall phenomenon. Everything is haywire.

The animal species are changing -- birds and insects especially. Old ones disappearing, new ones moving in. I saw Boston orioles last year. A hive of honeybees has moved into a tree near our house. I'd be thrilled if they were in a lower-traffic area. Last year I tried encouraging them to leave, but they didn't. This year, I'm so worried about the crashing bee population, I don't have the heart to pressure them. They haven't bothered anyone yet; hopefully they won't.

I don't understand how people can be so blind, deaf, and numb that they don't notice any of the changes in the world around them. I feel for the polar bears on their shrinking ice floes.

I feel like a polar bear on a shrinking ice floe.

A Poor Year for Raspberries

TIME magazine has an article on drought. Illinois is not one of the areas marked as suffering from drought. But we've had very little rain this year. There are quarter-inch-wide cracks in the soil. My flowers and herbs are wilting even though I water them daily. Even the weeds are wilting. Now, this sort of thing is not uncharacteristic for our area -- but it usually happens in mid-July to late August. This year it started in late May.

The wild strawberries didn't fruit at all, that I can see. Half their leaves are crinkled and brown already. There are very few raspberries. The black ones are tiny, hard, and sour. I've found a few yellow ones that were edible, but they are still small and scanty. Maybe if it rains later in the season, the second crop of yellows will be worthwhile. The blackberries look to be faring no better than the black raspberries. No pie cherries, either; I don't eat those, but someone else was interested in them for homebrewing. There are mulberries on the trees, but nothing darker than red, and almost none on the ground. I suspect the birds are devouring all of them as soon as they get half-ripe ... possibly because some other food source(s) is scarce or absent.

Today the weather was hot and humid. We had a few lethargic drops of rain in the afternoon, and a stingy sprinkle this evening. We may get more later ... but probably won't.

There is a pervasive sense of wrongness about the weather now. It's been increasing for years. I'm not really all that old, but the changes in my lifetime have been dramatic and alarming. The spring and fall rains are all but gone. The heavy winter snows are gone, dwindled to occasional flurries and one or two big storms a year. There are more ice storms, though. Summers, oddly, are a little cooler, sometimes dryer but on the whole I think they're actually wetter. We got flooded in during summer, several years running. That never used to happen; floods were a spring/fall phenomenon. Everything is haywire.

The animal species are changing -- birds and insects especially. Old ones disappearing, new ones moving in. I saw Boston orioles last year. A hive of honeybees has moved into a tree near our house. I'd be thrilled if they were in a lower-traffic area. Last year I tried encouraging them to leave, but they didn't. This year, I'm so worried about the crashing bee population, I don't have the heart to pressure them. They haven't bothered anyone yet; hopefully they won't.

I don't understand how people can be so blind, deaf, and numb that they don't notice any of the changes in the world around them. I feel for the polar bears on their shrinking ice floes.

I feel like a polar bear on a shrinking ice floe.