Monday, May 6, 2013

Hide and Seek


Mother nature has a sick sense of humor.  I'm not sure I appreciate it.

I awoke early on April 1st.  April Fools Day is my favorite day of the year.  It's the only day I can trick anyone and everyone and not get back lash from it.  I yanked open the dining room blinds and was promptly blinded.  Stark white snow covered every inch of the ground. My butt hit the chair as my mouth dropped open.  I know Mother Nature was watching and laughing hysterically.

Now I love winter and snow.  But this has been a long cold winter for this southern girl.  I took a few deep breaths and thought, "Mother Nature I can roll with this."  I pulled on my snow pants and parka and headed outside to snap some pictures. 

Signs of spring were appearing everywhere.  The plump robins had returned to search for worms.   Tulips were starting to push their green leaves through the frozen winter soil.  I could hunker down and survive a couple more days of winter.  After all I had an extended vacation planned  in sunny southern California.



The flannel sheets were striped off the bed to be replaced with cool silky summer sheets.  Snow pants and parkas were laundered and folded away in the trunk.  Light weight jackets and wind breakers were hung in the closet with care.  Tea bags were replaced with instant tea.  I dumped the stale ice that had been lounging in the ice maker since September.  By the time I got home from California the ice would be fresh for sun tea and warm weather would flood every crevice of my life.

Seventeen days later I returned home to warmer weather.  We hauled Doug's precious lawn mower in for the annual exam.  I scaled the ladder and spent a week pruning our six apple trees.  Doug began the laborious task of deweeding some of the flower and vegetable beds.  (He has to get in there before me to desnake it too!)

Then it happened.

May first, forty two days after the first official day of spring, it snowed!  It snowed five inches!  Being the neat and orderly people that we are, we had put the snow shovels in hibernation in the potting shed.  The snow kindly drifted on the potting shed door so we couldn't open it.  This was not a light, fluffy worthless snow.  It was wet and heavy and good for making snowmen snow.  But it was spring.  Not time for making snowmen.  



My tulips had bloomed and were snow covered.  The asparagus and rhubarb that were popping back to life had to have a blanket.  We bailed our mower out of the lawn mower doctor store, but we couldn't help all the other mowers sitting outside in the snow waiting for a home. 



"Alle alle achts und frei!"  Mother Nature please bring spring out of hiding!



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