My Climate is Changing. Is yours?

I've been here in Sedona, Arizona for almost 12 years now. I knew growing my food and flowers here, my food forest, being sustainable and greening this desert would be a challenge but... and.... I have loved every minute of it. Even in the beginning when I was still working full time I spent several hours each and every day watering, tending my gardens and watching Mother Nature so I learned everything I could from her, learning the best way to enjoy and be a good partner of this world. I watched the directions of cloud formations when the monsoons take shape in the early summer and how the rain fell and where it went. I felt the temperatures and how each area of my gardens thrived or didn't depending on La Ninas or El Ninos and the continuous and increasing drought taught me more lessons. I watched and listened to the birds and lizards and animals because they all have something to show us that we should be paying attention to. I tried to learn everything I could from her so I could succeed. It has been a joy since I retired and now spend all my time in my gardens.

And now it is changing. I am not looking for a debate on why it is changing. That can be left to the Cider Press. But I am very aware that it IS changing and I have to adapt and change with it, quickly I think. So many of the birds I have loved and hated and gotten to know took off and left 2 years ago. New birds are here now. They are still strangers to me. Different bugs are entering my spaces and trying my patience. For the first time after 3 years of extreme drought we are having monsoon rains again. But they are not acting anything like the monsoons I have come to know. The clouds and winds aren't following the same patterns and the rains are just rains, not monsoon thunderboomer outbursts, no gushing water to capture. It is still early in the season but I think it is important to pay attention.

There are lots of meteorologists and climatologists that are documenting the changes that are taking place on a grand scale. They are measuring the temperatures in the oceans and the melting glaciers etc. But I think it would be helpful to all the climate scientists and to future generations if we all document what is taking place in our local ecosystems. If you have a minute could you tell us what is changing in your world.

And happy gardening everyone.

I have spotted several Armadillos in southern Illinois.   I grew up in this area in the 50s and 60s and never saw any.  As with many people east of the Mississippi, I have spotted a couple of Mountain Lions within 30 miles of me. There has been one reliable bear sighting about 25 miles east of me.  I stopped seeing Cardinals in the summer last year.  This year I became more observant. They have moved deep into the woods.    20 years ago, Blue Birds were common, I have not seen any for several years. My pond used be be a place for Herons and Wood Ducks.   I haven’t seen any this year.

I was reading a post by Paul Wheaton last week called  'Mitigating heat during the PTJ and SKIP events'. https://permies.com/t/164975/permaculture-projects/mitigating-heat-PTJ-SKIP-events  He talked about how much hotter it is getting in his area these days, how his climate is changing.

His post got me to thinking.... O.K. At first it got me to chuckling... 107 degrees! Welcome to my world! But after that... I know a lot of bird watchers are documenting the unusual migration of birds in and out of their areas now to better understand what is happening and what might be to come and how one thing effects another and another and so on. And I wondered if it would be helpful to the experts and climate scientists if we documented what is happening in all of our micro climates. I thought Permies might be a good vehicle for collecting all this raw data. It might just be useful to someone in the future.

Yes.. the climate is changing. In fact, that’s all it has ever done. To think that there is some golden, static, “perfect” climate is strange in my opinion. We need to roll with the punches, and not buy into the fear and blame game that is being used to manipulate people’s emotions by others who intend to control.