Back at the beginning of March, when we took a whirl-wind
trip down south where nubs of green had already started to weigh down the
trees, the trip gave us a two-day respite from our end-of-winter drearies. It seemed to me then that once we returned
home, it would only take a few weeks before we’d celebrate our own spring. Well, that little field trip was two months
ago now, and after experiencing one of the coldest April’s on record, let’s
just say I’m a tad impatient.
I suppose,
it doesn’t help that every phone call from our daughter who’s on internship in
South Carolina begins with a weather report.
“It’s seventy-five and sunny, Mum,” or “Mid-eighties, today. I’m so hot!” To be fair, she’s working in an un-air conditioned
kitchen right now, so hot for her is the real deal. But hearing her, I have to swallow hard,
since I’m still wearing my Ugg boots in the house, and the heat that goes on
automatically when things drop below 62 degrees inside is blasting each morning
when I wake up. Over the past week, we
went from Saturday to Sunday with overcast skies at best, driving rain at the
worst. Oh, Seattle folks, I don’t know
how you do it. This weather is causing
me to take on curmudgeon tendencies.
About ten days ago, filled with optimism, I made up some nectar
and hung up the hummingbird feeder. In
case you didn’t know, hummingbirds live about five years, and they have
memory. Over the last several springs,
they’ve hovered at my family room window BEFORE I put the feeder up right outside of it for the
season. This year, I decided to beat
them, but I’m still waiting. I don’t
know what they do when it’s this cold, but in spite of migration charts that
show they’ve made it this far north, I haven’t seen a one. Outside my rain-specked window, the fresh
blooms of the early rhodies are drooping, the ground cover phlox has been
beaten down, and when I went out during a respite in the showers yesterday, I
found a mouse drowned on our new patio.
Boring weather post?
Yes, I guess. But I’m from New
England, where complaining about the weather is an art-form. And then there’s this. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that all this
rain is my fault. I did after all, hang
up the hummingbird feeder. And if that
wasn’t enough to tempt fate, last weekend, in between showers, I washed
windows. I rest my case
