Baby, Its Cold Out There

Although spring is officially here, we awoke this morning to winter. The thermometer on our porch registered a chilly 20 degrees. I don't have a problem with the cold, but all our plants surely will. Both our apples and blueberries have/had? a bumper crop of blooms this year, as did the plum, peach and apple trees in our courtyard at school. A couple of weeks ago when we drove through upstate SC the orchards were a sea of pink. I fear that there will be major damage to the fruit crops since temps ar due to drop into the lower teens this weekend. In addition to the fruit, the mast crop is in danger as well. A lot of the oak and hickory trees in our area are also in bloom and will probably not produce well as a result of this cold snap. That doesn't bid well for the squirrel, turkey and black bear who are highly dependent on mast crops. We have just had an immigration of squirrel in the last couple of years because mast was abundant. It had been several decades since our area had seen such a large squirrel population. We have lived in our house for 32 years and last year was the first year we had a squirrel in our yard. If the mast doesn't make it I'm afraid they will move out again. I just hope that the trees at the higher elevations can still produce enough to feed our wildlife, since they haven't started blooming yet.