Come late February I'm usually pining for 40 degree mid-afternoon sunshine. That's all it takes these days, the red line reaches 39 degrees and I slide into my sandals and head for the porch with a book in one hand, cocktail in the other.
Typically I get two weeks of days like that in late march, which go as fast as they appear. When I've finally gotten rid of the winter ghostliness, and a slight tan appears on my pale self, the days are gone.
You're probably thinking, well it can only get warmer from there, right? Wrong. Spring peaks out from the turd-dotted snowbanks only to bring a pleasant dose of mud and wind. Oh, mud and wind, how we've missed you.
This year, we're one step ahead of the game on the home mud factor. We graveled our dust bowl of a backyard last fall, only one day before the first snowstorm. Lars hauled, by hand, 32 tons of gravel. He suffocated the sparse grass blades that resembled the chest of a 90-year old man. And the stout weeds, gone, in one afternoon. A miracle, really.
So I don't have a lot to complain about when it comes to mud right now. I just try to step around it in town, and back off the trail until it hardens. (But, when you're dying to get out and just go for a hike, it's infuriating.)
Today, the "breeze" that was predicted blew open my double-paned doggie door causing every other door in the house to creek open slightly then slam shut. WIND should have been the forecast.
Last year, the wind continued to roar for three whole months. TORTURE! The temperature was nice, but the wind was enough to blow the roof right off your house.
I'm hoping that this year we only have a month of wind, but I'm sure Mother Nature has something else in mind.
