Wonky weather

We are...at the end of June.  Not quite to the beginning of July.  And, since Saturday, we've been having April rain.  And late April/early May temperatures. 

We've had the wrong geographic location's weather at multiple points, so far this year: we've had one week of weather normal to this area (i.e., hot as hell and muggy) at this point of the year, so far.  Only one.  Usually, we'll have had June come in starting at the upper 80s, and shooting upwards fast.  At this point in June, we should be topping 90 every day by midday, and getting hotter until about 4:00.  This year?  Not so much.  We've had low to middle 80's for the most part, with a couple days flirting with 100, but most days no hotter than the mid 90's.  

Granted, that's still too hot to cook indoors with the size and capability of our current AC unit (it's an air exchange heat pump.  Not the best for our area).  But we now have that fully managed: we've got a propane grill that gets used for making pizza for the other half and kids (it's basically an outside oven), and it has a stove-top type burner off to the side for if we need to use it.  And recently, we found a nice, big toaster oven/convection oven/rotisserie/air fryer, built a decent counter, and have been able to do other stuff that the grill's not precise enough for.  The next plans are to get a small, table-top charcoal grill.  We've had the propane grill for two years, and...while it does a decent job, there's nothing that beats a charcoal grilled burger.  

The other mess we've had this year...and last year...and the year before...is things have been wet.  Really wet.  Like double (or more) the normal amount of rainfall one year, and half again the normal amount for the other two.  We've had at the very least minor flooding issues for the past three years in a row.  And yeah, it's kind of done bad things to the crops in the area.  Some fields have damn near drowned.  

And when you combine that with it getting colder than normal over the winter, and warming up later than normal, and starting to cool down earlier than normal...you see where I'm going, here.  The growing seasons have been something like a month, month and a half shorter for the past couple of years.  

This isn't a new trend, by any means.  It's been cycling cooler for years.  Instead of having a month or more at or near 100 degree highs, we've had a few days to a week or so in a row.  Maybe twice or three times per summer.  

Global warming this ain't.  

The plants are not doing as well as they have in years past (with a few exceptions).  The crop yields in truck gardens have improved, yes; however, some of the major food crops in the local fields have had some...rather skinny years.  The winter wheat, for example, this past year, has been kinda wimpy.  The heads are skinny, and the crop is about a month, month and a half late.  The corn's tall, but hasn't put on ears yet, that I'd seen in the trip out to visit my family last weekend.  It's about two weeks late on that.  Soybeans are usually a second or even third crop (following winter wheat, and sometimes corn...which gets harvested in July...most years).  It's...really not looking that wonderful, around here.  

Something tells me that the "global warming" alarmists...never learned that plants love carbon dioxide, and thrive in an atmosphere rich in it...and a warm one, at that.  Plants don't do well when things cool down.  The only things that do are the really hairy mammals.  And even those don't do well when things cool down too much, and food sources die back. 

"Follow the science," indeed.