Last year was the warmest year on record and the first two-thirds of January of the new year seem to be trying to make up for all of last year’s warmth. This month’s country-wide temperature is 1.2 degrees below average through mid-month and more than 56 percent of the contiguous United States was covered in snow this week, according to yesterday’s Washington Post. Next week, we’re supposed to have an unseasonable thaw.
Too many things are not as they should be these days. Which brings me to today’s photograph. It’s our Christmas Amaryllis, which failed miserably at its job and turned out to be a mere Martin Luther King Day Amaryllis. Nonetheless, it’s pleasingly poignant to watch a tropical flower bloom in the middle of what may become Maine’s coldest January on record. (Image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 18, 2024.)