The Rhubarb Indicator

     In the waning days of March, I harvested an armful of rhubarb from our garden. Soon the house was enveloped in that must-be-spring fragrance of a rhubarb and nutmeg crisp baking. Just as the smell of apples and cinnamon mean fall, or the fragrance of basil means summer, rhubarb in the oven means spring.

What's Wrong with This Picture?

 

Early rhubarb 2015

In my early years of gardening some 35 seasons ago,  considered myself lucky if I could harvest enough rhubarb around Mothers Day for a pie for my husband's birthday (he's not a fan of cake). Year by year, that's become less of a challenge. This year, rhubarb may well have peaked by then. It's a hint that our climate truly has changed over time, and continues to do so. At least in our micro-climate. I often wonder how much time deniers of climate change spend outdoors, truly observing. We often couldn't rototill the garden until June. This year it's been tilled already.

     So, what is our normal climate? What is “normal” anyway? Are we just in a temporary change? We've had those before. And surely will again. Still, the numbers rolled out each month and year for driest, hottest, coldest and stormiest  hint at bigger changes. Definitions come from looking back at the solid numbers that have occurred. How much do our lifestyles, mainly energy-use affect it all?

     When we first moved onto our rural acreage about a quarter of it was forested. Back then, I thought the trees that did exist were as tall as they'd get. The fact they weren't was just one of many lessons this property and over three and a half decades of living on it have taught me. We've planted several acres in trees, as have birds, squirrels and just thinning other spots. If you have the luxury of time, you could watch a forest slowly expand from cones dropped along its edges.

     Growing up on the Great Plains where trees were fewer and mostly deciduous, I adored being surrounded by forests when we first moved here. I loved every single one, from those sprouting conks (indicating the were dead, even if not immediately obvious) to the tiniest saplings. They were all somehow a comfort, a crowd of silent, reassuring new friends.

     Now, I see them differently. They're more ominous, less comforting. Rather than just appreciating their shade in summer (though I still most certainly do), now I worry about fire danger in our current drought. The cigarette butts we find on our roads, even hiking paths in the woods, leave me fearful and angry. The piles of slash from thinnings look more like kindling. Our entire neighborhood could lose everything from one carelessly tossed cigarette.

     Still, we're in far less dire straights than California. That's been fairly well known for a few years, but an article I read by Tom Philpott recently really brings it home. He talks mainly about the water used by almond groves. Another consideration he doesn't mention in this particular piece is the number of beekeepers from around the country who must haul their hives to the Golden State just to pollinate the orchards. What is the environmental effect of that?
Local a Necessity?

     I keep wondering what effect the increasingly-evident environmental changes will have on how we source our food. And even our diets. We have no clue about the effects our choices have on the areas they come from and the people involved. If we had a clearer picture of that would we change our habits? Like most of us, I try to “do the right thing,” but so often I feel profoundly ignorant. And am.

     It's not just the environment and the climate we affect, but people. Generations of people. The farmers, farm workers and the people who live in areas where our food is grown. If we eat more that is grown nearby, will we choose more wisely?What would it do to our health? That of our region? Our economy? No one knows for sure.

     Just like the creeping availability of rhubarb in my own (increasingly shady, thanks to trees getting still taller) garden, we (more the 20-somethings of today) will look back someday and see how much things have changed.

     Just the sight of camas blooming every spring reminds me that native peoples saw a much different food scene than I've seen in my lifetime. My “always” has not be the always. There is no such thing as always, thanks in large part to human nature and its effects on nature itself.