The song greeted me as soon as I opened the door. Open the door. Song. Close the door. Silence. I did that about five times then determined that indeed two birds were singing their little hearts out to the sun’s warmth coupled with the smell of spring. Needless to say, the door stayed open.
Most of the country, including you on Neff Road, have had a long, cold winter. We in Oregon have had cool, rainy weather. And, contrary to belief, the weather here is not always rainy. In fact, Oregon is the 39th wettest state. So, for a state that had not met its needed rainfall this year, we found it all in April. On Wednesday when this column comes out, it is predicted to be 86 here. Where’s my sunscreen!
The weather affected those in that house back the lane. Weather was often the topic of discussion. Farmers depend on good weather for healthy crops and money in the bank for the long winter. A dry year and plants struggle. I remember walking the field with a bucket of tobacco plants replacing those drooping and dying. Livestock seemed to feel the weather. Grazing land was sometimes meager. Rain kept animals in the barns. Farmers often could not plow due to wet fields. And erosion accompanied dry, windy weather. The land coupled with the weather either made it a year of bounty or a year of struggle. We creatures felt the fear of lean years, hoping to hang on until the weather changed.
I remember those nights lying in my bed just praying for a breeze to pass through the window. Just a faint breeze tickling the sheer curtains would have been a blessing. I tossed and turned finding sleep an allusive bedtime companion. In the winter, I prayed that the heat in the one radiator upstairs would reach my bedroom. Comforters piled high, I snuggled into a cocoon wishing for the days when I shared a bed with my sister June and had her warmth to keep me warm. The people in that house back the lane on Neff Road felt the weather even though we were sheltered.
The weather affects us all. Depression sets in when we have too much of any type of it. Grey days. Hot days. Snow that seems to never end. We hibernate waiting for spring. We hibernate waiting for a breeze. Rain comes as a relief. We smell it before the first drop strikes the earth. We stand in it and revel in the freshness we have missed.
After all those years of soaking up the sun, I find my skin damage makes me angry that we did not know that sun exposure was harmful. I now know that much of the illness I had as a child came from allergies and changes in barometric pressure that affect me. After all these years, I am very aware of how weather affects me. Weather. It affects all living creatures.
The weather is no longer ours to depend upon. Changes are happening, and we are learning how to adjust. Animals are disappearing as their environments change. Glaciers are disappearing. Water is rising. Island people are searching for places to move their tribes as their land disappears beneath the sea. The great coral reef is dying, not to be revived. The ocean warms and food sources for sea life suffocates. Satellites circle this ball we live on and track its changing surface. The change in climate will not go away.
So as I warm up this week, I will keep my mind on the big picture. Not everything is the way we want it to be, and we can’t make it change. Well, we can. Maybe not a big change but making wise decisions on the way we live can allow us to be proactive.
National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore has been shooting Photo Ark (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/rare/) for eleven years. He is capturing photos of animals endangered and those almost extinct. Those so rare that he must climb mountains and hike through impossible terrain to capture them. In many cases, they are the very last of their species. There are many fighting to save this planet. As we struggled on the farm wondering what the crops would do and if we could survive the winter on the productiveness of those crops, we have to wonder with the changes in the earth, how soon we will be on the extinction list. The extremes in weather, the rising and warming seas, the loss of incredible species are signs of the earth crying out. The question is, “Are we listening?”
The door is open.
