Unseasonable

For the second time in a week, we reached sixty degrees yesterday. At the time of year when our normal high temperatures are in the teens, we’re looking at another week of the forties. The day started out with ominous omens.

I discovered Randa wielding a fly swatter in the kitchen before breakfast. “It’s been so warm the darn flies are hatching out,” she remarked, whacking at one that kept bumping against the window and then taking cover in a corner. Eventually, the fly blundered and we then turned our attention to breakfast.

Toast finished and bowl rinsed, I headed out to the garage and made yet another discovery of untimely development. There on the concrete floor, flat on its back and completely immobile, lay a freshly hatched stinkbug. It was as green as a lime. I picked it up and carried it into the house. “Look at this,” I invited, holding the specimen out for Randa’s inspection, which didn’t take long. “Stinkbug hatched out and then froze last night.” I dropped the critter into the wastebasket under the sink and returned to my garage project.

A couple hours later, I came back into the house. The stinkbug was crawling across the kitchen floor. I picked it up on a piece of paper this time; figured if it was mobile it was also capable of living up to its name. I took it outside and thumped it about fifteen feet out into the grass. I’m fifty-eight years old and I’ve never seen a freshly hatched stinkbug in January. What I’m more worried about, though, is that I’m soon going to be seeing my little fruit trees budding out right before the month returns to its traditional habits.

I’m a bit ashamed to be apprehensive about such remarkably pleasant weather but I have seen whole orchards ruined. I’ve also seen lives ruined when people forget that every season has its purpose and that even enjoyable things can happen at the wrong time.

H. Arnett
1/6/12