A Grower Perspective

Where I grew up in western Washington we had a saying if you couldn’t see the mountain it was raining and if you could see the mountain it was going to rain. The mountain referred to here was Mount Rainier (14,411’ high). Because it rains a lot in the great Pacific Northwest this was a fairly accurate evaluation of the weather. Where I live and work now there are no high magnificent mountains. But there is great beauty and our landmarks and gauges are a bit subtler. I look out from the nursery and am surrounded on all sides by natural beauty. Papenfus Creek marks the south and east border. I don’t see the creek but I do see all of the deciduous trees bordering it. To the west are brittle cottonwoods that are snapping off as I write and the Friends of Buford Park Natural area. And to the north is the grand Mount Pisgah (1,531’ high), my weather gauge for my life here. As I drive to work I head toward the mountain and check it out and see if it is fog covered, misted over or even topped with a bit of snow. And then I think about my weather day. This is the first indoor winter job I’ve had in 30 years so the relative weather is not so important to my personal comfort as it used to be. It is important to the nursery. Dave Daniel, the nursery owner and our leader, uses a much more sophisticated weather analysis. He has many weather web sites he checks often. He knows where the reservoirs are and how to find out when the water is held in and when it is let go. He checks state weather maps and can see what is predicted and what is happening right now. He intimately knows the lay of his land, how the creek and river run and where the water collects. He makes notes where more gravel needs to go to prevent puddles and where more drains need to go for more efficient drainage. This is good land and nursery management and adds to the quality of the plants produced here.

There are many ways of looking at the weather, talking about the weather and being prepared for the weather. We have folk wisdom, folk experience (folks that have lived through extreme weather situations) and we have very useful, sophisticated and accurate systems for predicting weather. I like looking up at ‘my mountain’ and making my predictions for the day and I also like checking out the websites that Dave has shown me. Weather is an endless conversation topic, with endless stories to be told and enjoyed and is effecting every moment of our lives in some way or another.