Oh, How the Weather Teases Us!

I've been receiving the most pictorial, descriptive, warm-sounding emails from my eldest sister, who lives in a little farming town in Arkansas....Lonoke (ponounced Lone Oak...not LaNokey, as Geraldo Rivera called it back in the days of the Paula Jones fiasco. And yes....that is Paula Jones' old stomping grounds.) Anyway....

My sister, Prudie, loves to garden and landscape. Her yard always looks so inviting, homey and colorful. She tells me of her daffodils and how beautiful they are, and how soon her dogwood will be blooming, and I sit here and daydream of times long ago when I lived there and Spring sprang and I felt alive after a bone-chilling, humid winter.

Many years later, I have acclimated myself to Colorado winters (which aren't so bad really!). I wait it out like everyone else, but somewhere about April 1 I begin to feel teased by the weather patterns. Outside I see the beginnings of life....purple sage sprouting up, aspens with buds, patches of green bursting forth here and there through the whiteness of the snow as we drive down the highway, the warmth of the sun on my face as I walk up and down Obsidian Drive.

Then POW! The next day it snows and blows and I sink back into cabin fever and start a fire in the wood stove, make a cup of hot tea and pull out my knitting needles. I sit on the sofa in front of the window and watch the substantial weather happening outside my front door. And I dream of daffodils and digging in the dirt and dogwood and the sounds of the neighbors mowing their lawns that first time, all welcoming in Spring once more.

We don't actually get Spring. My lilac bushes don't bloom until June. My garden doesn't get planted til late May (if at all). One day it's cold....the next is SUMMER. 

So all of you who are now working in your yards, planting perennials, pruning rose bushes, planting bulbs...just remember. You may be enjoying warmer temps right now, but when you are doused with the humidity and heat of summer and are trapped inside your air-conditioned homes, know that we in the Rockies are enjoying temps in the 80s. We may not get Spring, but we have INCREDIBLE summers. Not a bad compromise, if you ask me.