April 3, 2019

I’d like to know who it was that gave winter a standing ovation. As in all stage productions, you give the star a standing O, and the next thing you know, they’re back in front of you, with an encore performance.

The last time this happened, my husband blamed our daughter. She’d jumped the gun on spring, you see, and got her patio accessories in place. This time, however, she swears it wasn’t her fault. The canopy and sides for her gazebo are still in her basement. That’s one suspect down, and about a million to go.

We awoke on Sunday morning to find a couple of inches of accumulated pollen everywhere! It was one of those wet-snow productions, where the white sticks to every single tree limb and twig, no matter how thin. If I hadn’t had faith, that by the time I needed to post this essay that the kaka would be all gone, just a bad memory, I might have been truly disheartened.

My beloved got up on Sunday morning (a fair bit later, after I did) and trudged from the bedroom to the front hallway. We both have a habit of looking out the window of that front door first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. I heard his sigh. I told him not to worry, it wouldn’t last.

He told me he knew that, but it was still depressing.

Of course, by the end of the day, Sunday, the sidewalks and the road were clear, and only a little snow remained on the grass and on my car. But yes, I could concede his point. That new dump of snow just when we were about to start April felt like a bit much. I had to remind myself that I cannot discount the possibility of snow in this part of the country until after the 24th of May. This morning, looking out the window, I see now white kaka on the ground. I’m not standing and cheering. Don’t want another encore performance.

A cheery sign of spring, as I was driving through town on Monday, was provided by one of the variety stores that always sells hanging baskets. They had a nice selection of pansies out. I love pansies. Their little faces look so happy. They’re always smiling. The ones I’ll get in a week or two from the nursery just on the outskirts of town will be hardy enough, I hope, to withstand a bit of chill. Plus, I plant them in window baskets that I then hang off my porch railing. They’ll be about five and a half feet off the ground, so hopefully they’ll fare well when we get more frost. I might be tempted to cover them lightly if there is a frost warning. If I wait until closer to the middle of the month to get my pansies, I shouldn’t need to worry about it. But of course, that’s not a given.

I’m not as eager this year as I usually am to get my fingers in the dirt and my flowers in the ground and box. I’ve sort of been fending off a cold for the last few weeks. Stuffed up on some days, but most days not. It just seems to take a lot more energy than usual for me to get things done.

I suppose I really need to try and get my ashes to bed earlier than I have been doing. A couple of nights in the last week, I was in bed just after eleven, and one night, just a bit before. And then I forget that I’m trying to do that and the next thing I know, it’s nearly midnight and I’m still at the keyboard.

I continue to be staggered be the crap weather my friends in the U.S. have been having to deal with. Honestly, it doesn’t seem as if you folks ever get a break. Here, the weather is downright idyllic in comparison.

So I’m going to clap only politely, no standing O, for the disappearance of latest little dump of snow. And I’m going to assume that we’ve seen the last of it. By the end of the week we should be basking in 60 degree temperatures.

The only problem with crossing my fingers at my age is there’s always a danger they’ll atrophy and stay that way. 

Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury