Cold but not so cold as a month ago because this cold was ephemeral, after all it was April 15th. No matter how cantankerous the weather gets this is only a temporary set back. Maybe setback is too pessimistic a notion even after an intense winter of unrelenting ice, snow, north winds and darkness. This snow was the icing on the cake of spring. It means we made it through another winter.
This morning the tulip’s greens are 6” tall. The delicate Japanese maple by the looks of it made it through its first winter in our backyard. We feared for its life having not seen it for months buried under three feet of snow. Robins with bright orange chests call and spar on our power line, and the next door neighbors roof. And on my way to work I saw several snow covered boats in the harbor.
The local birds have gotten feisty. I miss the goldfinches. Sparrows have displaced their sweet song and golden transformation. But the sparrows in their own way are endearing. They have tenacity and heaven knows they are social to a fault. At the top of their lungs they congregate to gossip in the bramble between our northern neighbor and us. The dog two yards south is kept off balance, rushing to the shrub the sparrows inhabit when not at our house whenever let out of his house.
It was easy to keep track of the local mammals this winter. Their tracks littered the white wasteland of our 20 by 30 foot back forty. I was prescient last September when I bought a new snow blower and insulated the back stair’s storm door. That door was meant as a temporary fix until one day I came home from work to see that a new concrete patio engulfed the doors. I had forgot to remove them before the concrete was poured and so they were made permanent.
The doors have quite a few gaps and each time I opened the basement door to the crawl space I expected to be surprised but I was not. No creature sought refuge in the relative warmth of this dark subterranean space. I am not sure if that disappointed me or not.
The day wore on and snow lingered on the roof. The clouds went from blanketing to almost cumulus. Grass looked a little greener and the tulip’s buds sneakily appeared deep within their green leaves. In the few hours I had been to the office and visited the dentist to have yet another crown-replaced nature had been at work. This amount of growth is a far cry from peak growing season when a zucchini can grow a foot in an afternoon but I will take what I can get.
I suppose that’s what April is all about: spring clouds, green grass, budding tulips and birds singing their hearts out. It just took an April snowstorm to get me out of my funk.
April 2014
