Pining for better weather #phenology

We've reached that time of year in which many of the local pines try to pretend they're deciduous trees. Their older needles change color from green to gold and then drop, leaving the younger, green needles still in place. The local roads recently have been coated with windrows of fallen pine needles everywhere there's a pine or two or three growing roadside.

golden needles ready to drop from a pine

Photo by J. Harrington

It isn't just us, as we confirmed this morning when we saw the Tweet (shown below) from the National Weather Service - Twin Cities. "Sixth wettest on record" we assume brought with the rainfall a corresponding increase in cloud cover. At least we've, so far, not yet received the snowfall that Northern Minnesota has "enjoyed."

When we glanced at some tamaracks yesterday, they still looked very green. We think it's a little early for them to turn gold and drop all their leaves/needles. Tamaracks actually are deciduous. Since there's no sunshine in the extended forecast, we'll see if we can figure out some way to convince ourselves we should go and check nearby swamps, even though it continues to be cloudy and dank and damp.

In "honor" of the weather, we're going to substitute lyrics of a song Paul Simon wrote in lieu of a regular poem today. His piece is titled, of course, Cloudy.

Cloudy

The sky is grey and white and cloudy
Sometimes I think it’s hanging down on me
And it’s hitchhike a hundred miles
I’m a ragamuffin child
Pointed finger-painted smile
I left my shadow waiting down the road for me a while

Cloudy
My thoughts are scattered and they’re cloudy
They have no borders, no boundaries
They echo and they swell
From Tolstoy to Tinker Bell
Down from Berkeley to Carmel
Got some pictures in my pocket and a lot of time to kill

Hey, sunshine
I haven’t seen you in a longtime
Why don’t you show your face and bend my mind?
These clouds stick to the sky
Like floating question–why?
And they linger there to die
They don’t know where they’re going, and, my friend, neither do I
Cloudy
Cloudy

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