Greenemia

It's the time of year that people hate up here.  Winter, which started before Thanksgiving is holding on forever.  It's April and Yesterday it was four degrees F.  That would be four lousy paltry little degrees.  What about you?  Are there flowers blooming where you live?  Better not say yes or my insane envy might lead me to attack you.  People snarl at each other regularly, divorces and break--ups happen right and left.  The lucky ones leave and stay gone through mud season.  

Mud season is a particularly nasty few weeks that may actually be the fabled "Spring" or as much of it as we get.  Most people I know in Colorado try to hit Vegas, Mexico or New Orleans around now.  They are trying to get some sunlight to make up for the Vitamin D deficiency.   When I got off work yesterday afternoon it was starting to cloud up again.  I got my dog and we took off on a hike.  I didn't think it would last very long as it was nasty cold and the wind was picking up.  I ended up on top of a hill in the beginning of a snow storm, hard little pellets of frozen snow hitting me in the face and eyes.  I thought that because the hill was blown bare of snow there might be some plant life and there was!  It wasn't much, no flowers and nothing over a couple of inches tall, but it was green, damn it!  It was beautiful!  

After tearing up, partly from the wind and partly from the sentiment arising from the thought the temperature might break freezing some day in the future, I headed home.  My fingers were numb on the ends and I thought it might be possible I was getting frostbite on my left cheek.  When I opened the car door Roland ran for it instead of playing deaf and ellusive.  He jumped in and arranged a blanket.  It looked very inviting although hairy and I hurried home.  While I was climbing over the snow bank in front of my place that won't leave until May I looked in the upper reaches of my garden.  There, in that mystical area that first gets sunlight every spring were a half dozen daffodils plants at least four inches tall.  There aren't any blooms showing yet but the snow was a foot deep there only a few days ago.  

I sniveled some more, this time with joy and headed in to build a big fire, pile on the quilts and celebrate spring!