Sumac opening, Bell Cedar

I'm not taking the shorts out of storage yet, but I haven't needed to put on long underwear for a few days and I'm beginning to wonder whether I really needed to invest in ultra-warm boots after all. Maybe a new pair of lightly insulated waterproof boots would have been fine this winter. As if to second that thought, I spotted, while hiking in the ultras—they needed to be broken in—a sumac doing something utterly unexpected. The shrub had started, about three months early, to leaf out. Nor was it alone. A nearby Multiflora Rose had also broken leaf-bud dormancy, and there were at least a couple of other species I couldn't identify showing new green. This struck me as natural history insanity. Then again, maybe it's just a sign of what, in the era of anthropogenic climate change, will be the upcoming normal.