This is February?

OK TPP checked his calendar app and it is the oneth of February. In the upper Midwest this is the heart, the dead center of winter. It's 45 F outside and it was 51 F yesterday, which was good because TPP had to restack a firewood rack that had fallen over. A bit of a thaw is not that unusual, but this warm in the middle of winter has not been common place. This won't hurt plants unless they break their dormancy and begin growing when it is a virtual certainty that more cold weather will come before it is really spring. Having a good mulch layer around trees and shrubs keeps the soil cold and frozen even when the air warms up for a few days. This helps plants stay dormant. So far a few very early spring bulbs are being stupid, but they'll survive no matter what, but in particular gardeners worry about fruit trees being fooled and flowering too early. It looks like the X-country skis will stay in the garage attic for the whole winter at this rate, and Mrs. Phactor says its because she got super toasty warm mittens for winter walking.  So far this area has had exactly one snow event that required shoveling, and the nasty ice storm. This is pretty minimal, the rest of the winter precip has come down liquid.  If things keep going this way, it's going to be one super mild winter.

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!