We haven’t even had a light frost yet. Usually we’ve had at least one hard frost by the end of September. I’m hoping this is just a continuation of the year’s phenology being 2-3 weeks late this year and nothing else.
One year we didn’t have a frost until October 21. We usually get one around the first of October. We have enjoyed the extra time this year to get the houseplants back in the house, to get more tomatoes off our vines, and to see our late-coming morning glories have an extended season. (The morning glories are our canary in the coal mine… If we get any kind of a frost, the morning glories will be the plant that lets us know we got hit.)
Living in town, we can usually avoid the first few frosts that hit the outlying areas. There have been years that we have even had our first snowfall before we had our first frost. Right now, I would like a frost so that the lawn and the weeds will quit growing, and we can prepare for winter properly!
Right now, the first frost can’t come soon enough for me in Kenosha. I took the dog out this weekend to grab a cache at Prairie Springs park and he came out with two ticks while I had one. The problem was that these were the little pin head sized ones that carry all the diseases, not the bigger ones. These were the first of this kind that I have ever pulled off the dog. Luckily none of them were attached.
Craphas: from AstroD-Team’s General Forum post about winter precipitation on December 8, 2009…
“I’ll be tucked inside my house. Now that the white craphas arrived, I doubt I’ll be driving anywhere now. I think my caching days are over till summer.”
A mere typo… until Labrat got into the act:
“What’s a craphas and do they come in different colors???”