Sloppy spring

  • Win­ter is begin­ning to wear out, which should be good news. But I’ve noticed that in this area, the late-winter/early-spring phase has a wide range of temps and con­di­tions. The lower end of them — as we had last week — are just ugly. Cold and bit­ing, gray and stone-white, and as likely as not to start drop­ping thick, sleety muck from the sky that nei­ther accrues in a white blan­ket like snow nor falls in a steady sooth­ing pat­ter like rain. It says a lot that Clemen­tine, who always likes going on walks, wants noth­ing to do with going out­side on those days.
    walkingclem-in-rain.jpg

    But then there are the other days. The clouds sud­denly lift, the tem­per­a­tures rise 10 degrees or so, and from out of nowhere robins and blue jays and car­di­nals show up. The real bird­song hasn’t started yet. They’re all just like ner­vous actors get­ting ready for the cur­tain to rise. Some­where in the ground, all the lit­tle liv­ing things are get­ting that first ten­ta­tive tap on the shoul­der. Up top, Greg and I fid­dle with the ther­mo­stat and dif­fer­ent arrange­ments of blan­kets and sweaters. Some­times we grab them with des­per­a­tion to stave off a chill, only to dis­gust­edly toss them in a cor­ner shortly after­ward when we’re too hot.

    This isn’t the pretty part of the year yet. Look­ing around at sad, bare branches and brown, thatchy lawns, I doubt that post­card pho­tos of Mis­souri are ever taken in Feb­ru­ary. Still, there’s sus­pense in the air. It’s like liv­ing with a manic-depressive — you don’t know how your day will go until you see which phase is on today.


    Related posts:

    1. Spring?
    2. Late win­ter, early spring
    3. And win­ter makes that sloooow right turn
    4. Get­ting all Christmas-d up here
    5. Cold as a bat’s underpants

    February 15th, 2009 | Grace | 3 Comments |

3 Responses and Counting...

  • Mimi 02.15.2009

    LOVE this! So true, we are at that time of the year when we start to get just brief hints of Spring, and then the most amaz­ing storms. Feb­ru­ary has long been my favorite month of the year.

  • Grace

    I’ll bet it’s pretty out your way! We’re going a lit­tle fur­ther west this week­end (Col­orado), so maybe I’ll get to get a fla­vor of it.

  • Mimi

    Really? What a lovely trip! Enjoy!

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