Long Burn

Winter arrives

We are going to have more snow for Easter than we did for Christmas:

Right now the Pacific is giving the world an anti-Nino (La Nina), resulting in a tough winter in China, Afghanistan, the Midwest and rain in California. If I am not mistaken some rain for Australia too. Northern Europe on the other hand has had the warmest winter ever-- a non-winter. At least for the next week though the tables will turn and that's OK because the freezing temperatures will kill the eggs of the killer slugs that have invaded from Spain that eat the garden in the summer. Maybe it will also drive me to change the lubricating oil in my bike's sealed hub.

Labels: weather

Spring

It was a beautiful day yesterday and we met the first hedge hog, and saw the year's first ladybug.

Crocuses are up.

I tried to tell our four-year-old that this was a space alien but he wouldn't believe me. He wouldn't believe it was rhubarb either. First he said it was a cactus and then sushi.

Labels: weather

More weather

This winter was the warmest on record, and there have also been an unusual number of storms coming in off the North Sea. There was one last Friday-Saturday with a 9 foot surge on the Danish coast, trees blown down, power out, trains cancelled. There is another storm coming in tomorrow, and then another this weekend. I'm used to short intense storms in Minnesota but these ones are different-- rain and a long steady hard wind. 20 m/s means an average speed of 45 mph, with gusts on top of that. One good thing is that these storms pump lots of oxygen-rich water into the Baltic which will help the cod to survive.

Labels: weather

Last day of winter sports vacation

The Swedish winter sports school vacation week is kind of a misnomer, since it is spring, the earliest spring on record. January temperatures were 10 F above average, and February has also been unusually warm. Flowers are blooming, hedgehogs have come out of hibernation, pollen is in the air and the fish are biting.