Stoopid plants! It's not spring yet!

Yesterday broke a 100+ year old weather record with a high of 63 F smashing the old record of 54 F.  A young foreign student staying with us left this morning to visit Chicago for a couple of days, and she will come away with the erroneous conclusion that Chicago a nice place in the winter!  Well, it's not Thunder Bay, but still, it's not Pensacola either.  Our continental climate produces big dramatic swings in weather; that's expected, but what is not expected is the first week of February to have highs in the 50s.  Plants do stoopid things when we get weather like this.  They don't have calendars, and having had a period of cold weather, their physiology is convinced that it's time for spring so atypically warm temperatures break their cold dormancy.  So bulbs will be popping up, indeed, snow drops are in flower, not that more snow and cold will do them any damage, but some of the Phactor's magnolias are pretty stoopid and the earliest flowering get fooled regularly.  Nothing can be done about it, but curse this miserable weather that all the non-plant mopes are chortling gleefully about.  It doesn't have to be bitter cold, just consistently cold.  Uh oh, maybe someone didn't make a proper sacrifice to the snow god.  Quick, let's freeze a Floridian before it's too late!