Seasons are haywire

AJ Temple

AJ Temple

Location
Kent & Köln
18C in our part of Kent today. It's November. Cherry trees have popped into blossom. We have a few small birds trying to build nests, the Koi are still greedy and want feeding, and the wasps are still very active. Gingers in the glasshouses and even outside are still in flower. I'm still having to mow the grass. Free range chickens in farm next door are still laying very actively. It's bonkers.
 
Lucky you Kevin. We have had a huge wasp nest in one loft (nearly a yard across) and another small one at the other end of the house. As it is a tithe barn there are inevitably gaps past the oak framing and we get wasps in the house still. They are pollinators so as keen gardeners we don't like to kill them, but it was out of hand this year and I ended up using a smoke bomb last week. That said the garden wasps have overwhelmed two of the honey bee hives this year (we only have three in the apiary here). It's been incredible but they have not really affected the orchards any more than normal.
Some of our cherries are winter flowering, usually in January, but the ones in blossom are not winter cherries. It is worrying really. The Ivy is still flowering.
 
AJ Temple said:
18C in our part of Kent today. It's November. Cherry trees have popped into blossom. We have a few small birds trying to build nests, the Koi are still greedy and want feeding, and the wasps are still very active. Gingers in the glasshouses and even outside are still in flower. I'm still having to mow the grass. Free range chickens in farm next door are still laying very actively. It's bonkers.
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I was talking to my mother earlier and we both remembered that Guy Fawkes night fifty and more years ago always used to be really freezing cold. No longer.
Is anyone else suffering from an unprecedented plague of fruit flies?
 
Well this is here to stay so we better get used to it. My first skiing trip 40 yrs ago the guide said there's not as much snow as there used to be. Whether you believe in climate change or not, temperatures are rising but there is not a single thing anyone on this forum can do which will impact it. Stopping coal use in China won't, moving to EV's won't and the knock on effects to the global economy would have a much greater fall out. I no longer concern myself with things that I have zero ability to influence.
 
Saina Nieminen said:
Ice and snow conditions should be beginning in Helsinki by now but instead I'm bicycling to work tomorrow and it's +10C. 10 degrees higher temps than we should have at this time.
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31c in Limassol today…probably 5 or 6 degrees more than usual after the clocks have changed, I think..tourist hotels which normally started their winter shut down end-October have started extending through November, a major constraint being airline timetables.

I personally enjoy the extension of the summer season…unfortunately, so does my dermatologist…
 
As the evidence is now overwhelming and pervasive, only imbeciles and the insane deny that climate change is happening, so denialism has pivoted to the position that it's not anthropogenic. Or just as foolishly, to concede it is anthropogenic but claim there are no solutions so best to ignore it and crack on regardless. It is surprising how many people who have the intelligence to read and write express these opinions.
 
Phil David said:
As the evidence is now overwhelming and pervasive, only imbeciles and the insane deny that climate change is happening, so denialism has pivoted to the position that it's not anthropogenic. Or just as foolishly, to concede it is anthropogenic but claim there are no solutions so best to ignore it and crack on regardless. It is surprising how many people who have the intelligence to read and write express these opinions.
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It is mystifying. A few weeks ago I was discussing wine with a very eminent historian who insisted in all seriousness that the increased ripeness and alcohol of recent years was entirely down to the influence of Robert Parker.
 
Thom Blach said:
It is mystifying. A few weeks ago I was discussing wine with a very eminent historian who insisted in all seriousness that the increased ripeness and alcohol of recent years was entirely down to the influence of Robert Parker.
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Ask him what is going on in Champagne then. Given that he’s had precisely zero influence on wines produced there.
 
Keith Prothero said:
Problem of course is convincing those who are the major polluters.
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Certainly, but amazing strides are being made in countries of which one would not expect them at all and we should lose neither hope nor aspiration.
Mark Palmer said:
Ask him what is going on in Champagne then. Given that he’s had precisely zero influence on wines produced there.
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It is a badge of affiliation rather than a reasoned position. Given his genuinely colossal intellect I find it deeply saddening.
 
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