First frost. Better late than never.

Better late than never. We had our first frost of the season on Thursday morning, then another on Friday morning. This cold snap will really kick into overdrive, the changing of the seasonal colors. It seems like overnight, my commute got a little bit more colorful. The leaves are coming down in the yard more rapidly and the flannel sheets feel a bit more inviting.

Then, it warmed up. Yesterday and today have been in the mid sixties. More of the same for this week, even peeking possibly into the 70s once again. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining or anything. You see, I'm not much of a cold weather person. I don't mind chilly days every once in awhile, but I really do dislike cold. I would rather be hot and try to cool off rather than finding a way to stay warm. I have an aversion to frostbite. Gloves make everything harder to do. Glasses fogging over are a pain. Scraping the windshield in the morning sucks. Shoveling snow? Forget about it.

My wife is just the opposite though. She would love to live up north. She loves the cold, dislikes the heat. But living up north would shorten my growing season. It's already too short as it is. The time it takes to get everything to blooming stage takes too much time. Then at the end of the season, we have our plants winding down. I would love to live in a tropical setting, where there are no seasons. Where my orchids could live out doors all year long, all over the trees, blooming profusely all the time.

I like some things about seasonal change. I love the way nature uses this time to rest. I love to see the physical changes to some of the plants, like my juniper bonsai. Some of them change from a deep green to ambers and purples. The spruces and pines see this as their salvation season, and will reward us with new growth candles in the early spring. Look at the leaves on your deciduous plants in the late summer. They are full of holes and other defects from a season and a half of hard knocks. Bugs eating into them, hail stones and sticks poking holes in them. Burnt edges on some of the maples. It's been a hard life. Time to get rid of the damage, rest up, store some energy and start in the spring all over again. It is quite fascinating.

I think Virginia is a compromise for us though. We have definite seasonal changes, each about the same length. Our "real winter" starts here mid January to early March. February is our hardest month. We have the coldest temperatures and most snowfall during this time. Lately we have had more snow in early March, though. Is it due to global warming? I'm not sure. We should ask Al Gore.