Green Things

Spring is like breathing again after holding your breath for a really, really, really long time. At least that is how I always feel.

Today it is raining (yay! not snow!), but the other day I went outside and looked around and saw something incredible!  Green things and redish purple things were poking their heads out of the dirt, reaching for the sunshine and bringing a smile to my face!  I love, love, love to see the signs of Spring!

 

 

This moment is why I plant bulbs in the fall.  It's a good thing I learned the benefits of delayed gratification when I was younger, eh?  This year I was afraid that I may have waited too long, but thanks to the fool-proofish-ness of blubs...I have been vindicated!  

There were some other green things in my garden 

Why do weeds grow so quickly?  Oh well...they give me a good reason to get out and start working with the dirt. 

Winter?

While it has been pretty typically cold here in Southeast Idaho, we don't have any snow. That is very, very not normal for this little town. Right now everyone seems to be getting slammed with snow and yet, we have nothing. The weather people say we might get some tomorrow. Honestly, I'm not complaining about the lack of snow. However, it does seem like if it is going to be so cold we may as well get something out of it. The kids really want to go sledding and make a snow man with the awesome new snow paints they got from Santa for Christmas. Right now all we get out of the weather system that is bringing snow to places like Seattle, is wind, wind and more wind. I don't know whether to hope for snow or not.

Snow or not, we've all got the January blues. It happens every year. I get sick of gray, short days and start to get itchy to move. My kids get sick of the dull weather too (which is probably why they are hoping for snow). Mr. Spud suffers too. He is always too busy, stretched too thin and he also starts thinking of looking for a different job. Somehow I've got to find a way for us to take vacations in January. We need to get a timeshare in Arizona or something. We need the break!!!

The Idaho Cold Begins

Okay, I can deal with early fall, when the days cool off just a bit, but I really have a hard time with the fall in general.  It means that blessed summer is coming to a close, no more warm evenings out in the backyard talking with Mr. Spud; no more blissful morning or evening walks.  In this part of Idaho the beautiful, fun part of fall lasts about two days.  Early this week I was thinking how fun it was to see the trees with their colorful leaves, then the night time temps went down to the 20s and all the trees decided it was too hard to keep up the pretense.  The dropped their leaves en masse.  When I took our spudlets to school this morning I felt very grateful for our garage, I looked at the cars with thick frost and a small spot scraped out for a driver to see through.  Winter is coming, summer has died.  Idaho winters are long and cold.  There is some beauty in it all, to be sure.  But I will miss summer and try not to think about how far away the spring will be.   Hold on, the Idaho Cold has officially arrived and methinks it is here to stay.