Natures Thermometer

Dear Diary,

Our temperature has been like a roller coaster lately.  One day it will be below zero and the next it will be 40F.  Over the years, I have noticed that the rhododendron bushes outside the breakfast room windows respond to the changes in temperature very like a thermometer.  On days in the high 30's, the leaves will elevate and the colder it gets the more they fall.
The leaves also turn a bit darker in color as the temperatures drop. These two photographs were taken only a few days apart.

I am really enjoying the book, Walden Warming by Richard Primack.  Reading Thoreau's journals of his observations around the pond is fascinating.  I am far from a naturalist but he has made me much more aware of the subtle changes in the natural world around me. This passage was written on January 27, 1858 almost exactly 160 years ago today:

And then the rain comes thicker and faster than before, thawing the remaining frost in the ground...soothed by the steady dropping on the withered leaves...

January rains, and ice storms, were around in Thoreau's time too but now the spring thaws come earlier.  Heck, we hardly have spring now.  We seem to go right into summer.  The climate, rather than the weather, is changing and I am sure Thoreau would have had a lot to say about it.  I feel sorry for those who will have to deal with our careless disregard of the environment in the years to come.  We've done it to ourselves and we will have to pay the price.