A month ago I was thinking we were going to have an early spring (just from having to listen to Cathy Jean's hellbent focus on getting out of her tank every waking minute!) but then one morning, the outdoors looked like this...
But at least it sounded like spring. Despite the sudden twelve inches of snow (which was all the more dramatic because it did not melt away the next day), the outdoor birds continued to belt out their spring tunes.
I should have gotten a yardstick out to show off the depth. Those steps are mine. That trail crossing my tracks is what was left from a fleeing coontina customer. I know I shouldn't laugh, but it was kind of funny to watch that fleeing stray cat "swim" through all that snow to get away from me. No harm done. She was back the next morning for an early lunch.
But then, a couple days later, another foot of snow...
One foot of snow in Kansas City is dramatic enough...
...but another foot of snow just a couple days later?
Wow.
And yet.....I was still confident there was going to be an early spring because the odd thing was, you could still hear those outdoor birds singing...lots and lots of earnest singing. You really couldn't hear anything else because the roads were unplowed, the car were buried under snow, and since the local news stations told everyone to stay indoors and off the roads, in my neighborhood (at least), they did. If you closed your eyes, it sounded like a spring day (without lawnmowers of course)...it just didn't look like one.
This is not my handprint from where I fell in the snow...
Those are little raccoon handprints. I haven't seen any raccoons in a while and it makes me happy to know that they're still out there waddling from somewhere to somewhere.
The snow started to melt but I was anxious to see more proof of spring besides listening to outdoor birds (and indoor turtles) so I dug down in the snow and.......voila! Daffodils!
There was one 84 degree day when most of the snow melted (most, not all...there were still huge banks of snow left from snowplowing that just sat there unchanged in size while people walked by in flipflops). I was still adamant about calling it an early spring though....and then after the vernal equinox, I was just as adamant about calling it...um, spring.
But then, yesterday the snow business started up again...
Robins puffed up while waiting it out...
And stayed puffed up while waiting it out the next morning...
Crazy. But then, every single season is different every single year...and every single season can be described as crazy. I guess for me, it doesn't have to look like spring for it to be spring. The calendar says it's spring, the turtles say it's spring, the birds outside are enthusiastic about everything that happens in the spring.....I'm just going to choose to ignore what I see out there and go with what I'm hearing. It's spring. It sounds like a North American jungle out there.
And I know, it's been a long, long, long time since I've posted anything on this blog. Do I have a reason for not writing anything in half a year.....or more? Mmm, not really. I wish I had a good story. I just don't. What I have been doing is knitting shawls like crazy and I'm still not quite sure what the story is behind that but I sure have a lot of them (fifteen so far!). One of my most recent ones seems pretty germane to this crazy confused spring and its constant but intermittent 1-2 feet snow...a shawl the color of sunshine. It will keep me warm until what is going on out there catches up with the calendar and decides to warm up....for a plural amount days!
To shamelessly quote Cathy Jean Law (Cathy Jean's "aunt")...
