Xyk, thank you for all your excellent blogging this month!
Thanks, Ara!
I don’t mind if it gets cold. I would just like it if there was enough snow to actually ski instead of this waiting until it gets to -20 (i.e. inhumanly cold) and THEN dumping the white stuff I’ve been waiting for.
The pine borer has been here forever. But, it never caused that much trouble until we started having winters where we didn’t get sustained (freezing) cold for at least two to three weeks. I, for one, am happy when winter arrives. Now I’m hoping that we don’t have the nuts temperature fluctuation that’s been going on for years.
In January, 2000, we (in VT) had two weeks of weather where it was mostly around -30 to -35 C (sort of -20 to -30 F), occasionally hitting -20 C in the daytime. One night I woke around 2 am because of a smell — I smelled soil, spring-like loamy, soil. The snow pack was melting off the roof. I went and looked at the thermometer. It was +5 C. By noon that day, most of the snow had melted. The ground around trees’ roots was bare. Two days later, with no snow cover, it plunged back to -20.
The insects were hard at work on my trees much earlier and much more thoroughly than usual that year.
xykademiqz 
Well, it’s glorious in Miami. Finally.
Xyk, thank you for all your excellent blogging this month!
Thanks, Ara!
I don’t mind if it gets cold. I would just like it if there was enough snow to actually ski instead of this waiting until it gets to -20 (i.e. inhumanly cold) and THEN dumping the white stuff I’ve been waiting for.
The pine borer has been here forever. But, it never caused that much trouble until we started having winters where we didn’t get sustained (freezing) cold for at least two to three weeks. I, for one, am happy when winter arrives. Now I’m hoping that we don’t have the nuts temperature fluctuation that’s been going on for years.
In January, 2000, we (in VT) had two weeks of weather where it was mostly around -30 to -35 C (sort of -20 to -30 F), occasionally hitting -20 C in the daytime. One night I woke around 2 am because of a smell — I smelled soil, spring-like loamy, soil. The snow pack was melting off the roof. I went and looked at the thermometer. It was +5 C. By noon that day, most of the snow had melted. The ground around trees’ roots was bare. Two days later, with no snow cover, it plunged back to -20.
The insects were hard at work on my trees much earlier and much more thoroughly than usual that year.