Spring in the U.P.

View from the front door about 8 a.m. yesterday. I measured -- the snow on the railing was a little over 10 inches high. The average new snow depth on the ground was 14 inches. It finally quit snowing around noon. I know what caused it. People across the upper Midwest can curse me. The day before I'd mentioned to the S.O. that it was about time to put my cross country skis and snowshoes back in storage because I wouldn't be using them again this spring.  

The S.O. warning Billy (the grader operator) not to go up to the end of the driveway to turn around where he usually does. We'd had enough warm weather for a serious soft spot to develop and did not want to risk the grader sinking into mud. The snow was so greasy he was having trouble keeping the machine moving as it was. 

There are days when I think I'd love to have this job -- the machine looks like it would be fun to play with. And then I remember that Billy has to get up at an ungodly early hour and get to the county shed before any of the roads are plowed and I go back to just enjoying watching him work. 

I hear a lot of complaints from people about snow plow drivers leaving snowbanks behind their cars. It might be hard to see in this photo, but there is no snowbank. One of the reasons I'm always saying I love the Baraga County Road Commission is the grader operators, both the current one and his predecessor, are really good about never boxing the vehicles in or blocking the path to the house. 

If we're lucky, this will be the last we see of the grader plowing snow on our road until next fall.  

That time of year again

Went out to head for work this morning and discovered my formerly white car had become chartreuse overnight. The pine trees are definitely blooming. Fairly soon the drifts will start forming and folks will have to break out the Georgia equivalent of snowshoes in order to cope.

Time to get out the shovels

I do believe Atlanta is the first place I've lived where clouds of pollen were so thick in the air that they could be mistaken for smoke. I looked out the window this morning and my first thought was something was burning -- and then I realized what I was seeing was yellow and coming from the pine trees.  My once-white car is now chartreuse.  They're doing pollen counts on the local news again, although I'm not sure why they bother.  When the stuff is forming drifts on the sidewalks, you don't need a weatherman to tell you the count is high.

It's official

The azaleas may be late in blooming this month, but the sound of the flip flop has been heard in the land.

And tomorrow morning the highwater pants (aka capris) move from the back of the closet to the front.

Proof Winter won't last forever

This was in the mailbox yesterday:

A Shumway's catalog actually arrived last week, which amused me no end -- Winter hadn't even officially arrived yet, and the seed companies were looking forward to Spring.  I loved getting seed catalogs when we lived up north where it's good to have reminders it's not going to 20 below with six feet of snow on the ground forever.  Here I don't need that psychological boost quite as much, but they're still fun to read.  I always fantasize about having an amazing garden up on the tundra -- one of these years it may actually happen.  And I really love the Shumway catalog with its drawings instead of photos.  It's like instant time travel back to the 19th century:

It's Spring

It may not start officially for another day or so, but once I start seeing anoles on the patio I figure Winter (or what passes for it this far south) is definitely over. (Photo from Google images)

Swallows return to Capistrano

and flip flops and high water pants (capris, clam diggers, whatever) to offices in Atlanta. You know it's really Spring when the sound of flip flops is heard throughout the land.

I grew up in a part of the country where we all called flip flops "thongs" but I've figured out that most of the world now associates something other than footwear with that particular term.