We’ve now entered the era of whiplash weather.
Record highs followed by drought followed by gentle rain that is unseasonable only that, for my lifetime at least, we almost never get rain for at least another 1-2 months. People move here from out of state and see February as the normal time, cue the wisdom of Punxsutawney Phil, but growing up playing hockey, I always felt the spring thaw started in May, not February.
Now it’s March and we’ve had rain. Nice to get the moisture. Thank you cloud gods for parking it overhead in such a gentle way. The big concern was rebound flood after drought causes hydrophobic soil to run off instead of soak up, meaning instead of getting the necessary, we lose the irreplaceable.
I’m not saying soil restoration isn’t possible, more that the specific microbiome that evolved in that particular niche has degrees of uniqueness that are impossible to replicate.
It’s also impossible to be impacting lifeforms lower on the food chain in anything but a net-chaotic level of ethics. This time of year every footstep potentially crushes a new plant: so let’s make a path and stick to it. Every weed removed now risks disrupting a hibernating grub or spider or queen ant; root systems that are shallow but overlap with pockets of air undersoil are perfect homes for certain creatures. It’s a nonzero level of probability that at some point, what I do as a gardener hurts something else.