December passed by quickly this year (or last year, I suppose), but not without some oddities. First of all, all of the weather stations predicted snow; this is  not unusual in and of itself–snow is periodically predicted–but in Eugene, “snow” typically means that snow will fall from the sky, but will not stick to the ground. However, in this case, it stuck–all six inches of it. For a city where our winter weather usually consists of rain and fog, six inches of snow is a big deal; I had never driven in snow and ice, and judging from the sheer number of cars haphazardly abandoned on the side of the road, neither had many others.

Unfortunately, this weather interfered with our plans at the office. We had planned to plant numerous nectaring species plugs for the Fender’s Blue Butterfly, but had to wait for the snow to melt. During this time, Eugene also saw an unusual drop in temperature; it reached Eugene’s second lowest recorded temperature in history, -10°F, and let me tell you, I have lived in this area for nearly my entire life, and I did not know that it could even reach negative temperatures here (well, that’s one question answered).

We had initially worried that the cold weather would have damaged the plants waiting to be be put in the ground, but fortunately they survived and were ready to go when the snow melted. Luckily, my cohort and I had much appreciated assistance with the planting, in the form of a small high school class. In a matter of hours, we had all of the plants in the ground. It was quite nice to have a little bit of field time during a time when I am usually firmly situated in the office.

That was really most of the excitement for December. I took a short time off for the holidays to visit family, and am happy to be back in the office. I am also ecstatic to see that Eugene’s normal winter weather–rain, and lots of it–has returned.

Till next time!