Unseasonably warm temperatures in Maine.
It causes joy and confusion. Locals love the 70 degrees to continue the outside jobs buttoning up their homes for winter. Putting away summer toys, storing the boat, rolling up the hammock and tucking away the patio furniture until next year.
The gardens in Maine are confused too by warmer temperatures in Maine.
Our garden’s onions and carrots have a second bloom. They were thinking that’s all she wrote for vegetables this harvest season and then hold it. Wait a minute. What a surprise to see what’s waiting for the supper table in Maine gardens. When volunteers take over to create the late bounty you did not expect to happen.
But confusion for the fruit trees in Maine too.
Apple orchards are thinking temperatures hovering around 70 degrees means get to work. Sprout, bud, get ready for spring. But wait a minute, who fast forwarded over the winter months?
Did the trees miss the winter solitude slumber down time?
What gives? Did you get the memo? Who messing with Mother Nature?
Weather in Maine.
Warm temperatures in Maine, they cause a stir in local community conversations.
The elderly in Maine worried about double whammy high heating oil and tall grocery prices get a pleasant surprise.
Still warm and no need to crank the dial on the oil furnace. Or to toss another log on the wood stove fire. Winter temps below zero have not happened yet. And check out the garden, take a trip outback to see what’s been happening due to the warmer temperatures in Maine.
Next week’s Maine weather forecast calls for highs of 68, 69 and 70 degrees.
Plenty of extra time to drain the camp or get the house buttoned up for winter. Maine’s weather is such a myth and no, the state does not have a nine month winter. Four seasons and each one is special.
The fall back an hour daylight savings time routine just happened.
Like getting jabbed by a shot and no immediate effect yet. Only an hour time change but a form of mini jet lag happens to many of us. For a few weeks, I know I think about the old time and it takes awhile for the body to adjust to this slight change of routine.
The European Union had started down the path of doing away with daylight savings time.
But nixing the observance got bogged down in the war in Ukraine, Bexit, high energy prices, other matters moved daylight savings time down the list of priorities.
The warmer than usual temperatures this Maine fall, can it trick plants and trees into time to bud?
To think come on boys and girls, spring has sprung. We are creatures of routine, habit. Seems to make life easier and predictable without a lot of extra thought.
All I know is work with what you have and use it to your advantage.
True Mainers resist that twist of an oil furnace thermostat in the early days of a winter heating season. This mid fall in Maine weather has provided a lull, a sense of plenty of time to prepare for winter temperatures.
But there is nothing like a nip in the Maine air to pick up the pace banking your home, closing up the lake camp.
Or getting the next heating season of firewood processed to be ready. For whatever comes. There is something very beautiful and independent about seeing rows and tiers of firewood cords seasoned and ready to pop into a stove or furnace in Maine.
Locally, folks scrambling to get a new house erected and weather tight have used the luxury of warm temperatures with gratitude.
Earth work projects, new building starts that might not normally be done are underway. Cement mixers with slowly revolving cylinders on back are on the roads of Maine. Not parked today thanks to the extended building season due to above average warm temperatures in Maine.
Local produce growers in Maine however have it bitter sweet with the higher than normal fall temperatures.
My Dad always reminded the family of the expression “it depends on whose ox is getting gored.” Whatever is put into farm family fields to storage to draw from the bins over the impending winter season is struggling.
Moisture, air systems try to handle the chore of keeping storage buildings just the right atmosphere. Open the doors, close them back up again.
Hope the fans blowing air underneath farm produce bins do what they were designed.
But with temperatures 12 degrees and more than normal, that weather adds a strain in storage facilities.
Winter squash needs a dry storage. When a lot of rain, it rots the squash. Warmth added into the mix when its 70 degrees and you really need 50 degrees is not good for the product. Maine household root cellars are having a hard time maintaining an optimum 37 degrees for the long winter ahead storage.
Slowing the ripening, that’s what you want the dark, cool root cellar in your Maine home to do.
And your Maine root cellar does not need to be a basement room like the dirt floor, rock and mortar foundation farmstead homes possessed.
Timing, temperatures, the Maine environment around you is not always predictable.
Amish farmers in Maine know this better than most because of their yesteryear agricultural approach to growing produce. Even the best most prolific year with large harvest yields are for nothing if you can sell field run quick and easy or adapt to longer term storage challenges.
Weather in Maine, don’t particularly like the current conditions?
Maine weather.
We all know the drill. Just wait a minute. Dress accordingly. Be prepared and expect the unexpected right? At our local state soap box derby in Maine races, we remind parents and racers the day before the competition to plan accordingly. What to wear? Expect rain, blistering temps or cold blowing gusts of wind, maybe even a flurry of snow.
Weather in Maine changes very quickly and is never boring or same old same old.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |
MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street, Houlton ME 04730 USA
