Ring-a-Ding Ding. It's Spring!

Frank Sinatra's album: Ring-a-Ding Ding shouldn't be confused with the song: My Ding-a-LIng by Chuck Berry. Neither should spring be confused with some sort of a pastoral version of the season.

There are lots of flowers and green grass, eggs hatching in nests, and tiny little calves adorning the fields around Longmont. There was also flooding, hail, freezing temperatures, heavy snow, pouring rain, and tornados...all on Saturday.

This is a wet rabbit having a snack in some landscaping.

I just tried to take an online class about writing poetry. The title of this blog is an example of my new prowess as a poet. I found it to be utterly impossible to read about poetry, much less try to compose a poem, while watching my adorable grandchildren. I try to find inspiration in nature but the rabbit in the photo just made me kind of hungry for something with a nice mustard sauce and some fava beans.

Ring-a-Ding Ding it's spring.

Spring is Tricky in Colorado

The big rule for gardeners in Colorado is to never plant a thing until Mother's Day. Nurseries do a huge business once that holiday comes along.  But, this year, Mother Nature  decided to give herself the gift of more wintertime. Maybe she overslept. Maybe she's feeling a little bitchy. (she's no spring chicken, after all) So she's snowing and freezing and bending branches, and crashing cars, and it's after Mother's Day. Saturday was warm and a beautiful spring day. Sunday was not.

Saturday

Tenuous Spring

Sometimes it's difficult to talk to family and friends who live on the west coast. They speak of flowering trees, blossoming shrubs, and how spring is bursting forth all over their towns and hillsides. Not so for us in Colorado. When you live at altitude, spring takes its time, sneaking up behind your back. I watch, with some trepidation, as the first flowers open up. Plants were fooled last year. Flowers opened only to be frozen a week later. March is our snowiest month, statistically. This March has been almost balmy in defiance of the records. This makes me a little paranoid about what April will bring since it's also a month with wild hair and crazy eyes.

A Hitch in My Get-Along

Winter is on its way out. I keep hearing about the beautiful spring flowers in California, Oregon, and Washington. Nothing like that is happening here. Yet. Our beautiful blossoms live or die at the whim of the weather. Mother Nature gave us some early warm weather last spring, then murdered all of the plants that had the audacity to defy the calendar. We don't plant a thing in Colorado, except winter wheat, until after Mother's Day.

Spring will grace us with its presence on March 20th even if it will only be a date on the calendar. Just a week away. It's surprising how much this cheers me up, knowing that it will be the spring equinox.

I'm hobbling around like Grandpa Amos McCoy (Walter Brennan) as I walk around with a hitch in my get-along. I'm not wearing overalls though,  nor am I dispensing folksy television wisdom. I tried to help carry a heavy dresser upstairs and had a little pain afterwards. Sadly, my hip hurt a little more each day until I went to IKEA with a friend and walked on those hard floors for two hours. I've been experiencing some pretty bad pain since last weekend. I have self-diagnosed myself as having bursitis, or maybe arthritis but, whatever it is, it's finally better today. (translation: I don't feel like knocking myself out with a hammer) I think I can cover all my diagnostic bases by calling it stupiditis for trying to move that dresser.

The park provides a little bit of outdoor time.

I'd like to see one of these flowers sometime soon.

A Snowy March Evening

It's almost spring. We saw a bald eagle cruising above Longmont just yesterday. The art walks downtown will begin, along with the live music on Friday nights just three blocks from our house. We have parades and a good farmer's market here. I enjoy watching the many parachutes with crazy people attached to them as they jump out of a plane so high that you can't see it. You can only hear the drone of the engine as it circles higher and higher. You watch and watch then the specks appear, reminding me of tiny spiders hatching in the sky. I don't know where that image comes from but that's what I think of. Don't judge me.

The drive home from Denver was lovely today. There was a multitude of cloud types of all shapes and colors building up and moving fast as a cold front swept into the state. We have a lot of sky in Colorado, so there's room for lots of white and grey (and sometimes black) vaporous activity up there. However, the last thing I need, while driving 75 mph, is to be distracted by the sky.

Now, at 10:00, the rain has turned into a mucky snow. We're not expecting much precipitation out of this one, but it's all appreciated. I would love to see a news story proclaiming the drought to be over. The need for water in the West is a struggle we face all the time.

The preparation for our daughter and her family to move in with us continues. They are thinning out their possessions, throwing away stuff, donating, and packing. We have moved furniture around, decluttered, and packed away some fragile stuff since the soon-to-be resident granddaughter isn't quite three. You might think I fell out of my tree, but I'm looking forward to some change. It wasn't that long ago that three generations lived in one house and thought nothing of it. (god help the daughter-in-laws)

The back window reads: Funky Jesus Blazer.