Blogs → Today at Mary's Farm →

The Iceland Diaries, Part Seven

COMMENT

SINGLE PAGE

EMAIL

PRINT

RSS

SHARE:

(page 2 of 2)

What else now grows in Iceland is lupine, the result of another government program which perhaps has gotten out of hand, at least according to some. Lupine, the tall beautiful purple plant with blooms that grow up the stem like peas on a pod, was planted back in the 1940s to control soil erosion in the land bereft of root structure to hold the soil in place. The shifting land presented myriad problems to the farmers and to the country itself. It didn't happen right away and I don't remember ever seeing lupine when I was there before but now it completely covers some hills, giving the hills a beautiful blue-ish hue. Farmers tend not to like the lupine as sheep do not like it and so it grows unrestrained and thus diminishes grazing land. Understood. But in places, the aggregation of the plant, stretching as far as the eye can see is breathtaking.

The addition of the trees and the lupine was not as startling as the change in the climate. I wrote in my journal each day, the entire time I was there in 1969 and at the end of each entry, I recorded the temperature (I had a small thermometer that was attached to my backpack) and the weather. Most days were repetitious: forty degrees and rain. Sometimes, it went up to 50 and once, when we were haying, it was in the 60s and sunny. I have a snapshot of myself in bare feet, raking the hay into windrows. But, for the most part, it was cold and rainy and very windy. We only spent eight days there this time but it was quite the contrary, many days were 60 degrees and sunny. One day, we almost got a sunburn. I asked if the weather was unusual and was met with some shrugs, no, not really. What about the wind, I asked Imba, I remember such fierce winds! She stopped to think. "No," she said, "they are gone. We don't really have those anymore." Others I asked concurred. Another bellwether from my memories was the glacier, Langjokull, the second largest glacier in Iceland. Back when I lived on Frodastadir, I could see the glacier in the distance, in the same way some of us here can see Mount Monadnock, a soft sloping profile. I have several snapshots that show the white mound of the glacier at the end of the long valley.

"I don't see the glacier!" I said to Imba after I had arrived this year. "Where is the glacier?"

She looked perplexed. "You cannot see the glacier from here," she said. Imba was 15 when I lived there. Is it possible she cannot remember a time when it was visible? When I got home, I looked it up and saw the satellite photos. Langjokull is something like a third the size it was when I was there.

If anyone doubts that there has been climate change, that it is longterm and ongoing, I can attest to it, from my own experience, witnessing what Iceland was then and what it is now. A much more agreeable climate now, to be sure, and the flowers are a joyful addition.