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Hang in there – it’s coming!

crocuses

I had real trouble with the Winters here, at first. They aren’t all that cold — not by New England standards — but they’re just relentless and miserable and gray and (usually) wet. Mizzle, not snow. They seem to go on forever.

But the slide from Winter to Spring is incredibly measured. It has firm landmarks. If you can hang on through January, you can see the path to better times day after day.

First a few snowdrops. Then daffodils and crocuses. Then BABY LAMBS! Then all the hedges and trees turn white with blossom. Then it’s straight into the Month of Birthday and the Summer fete season and everything is concentrated awesomeness until September.

Maybe the signs were there in Rhode Island, too, and I was just too busy driving up and down I-95 to a gray cubicle.

I heard the voice of a lamb the other morning, but I think he must have been driving by in a truck. In the back, not actually driving. Ours aren’t due for another few weeks. Still — look! Crocuses!

Yeah, I know. Flowers look shit in black and white.

Comments


Comment from Janna
Time: March 2, 2017, 11:11 pm

I’m in Oklahoma, we are in full Spring mode!
Daffodils, quince, jonquils, tulip magnolias, fruit trees all in bloom now. A late hard freeze will really piss me off.
I’m even ready to mow when all lawn flowers are gone.


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: March 2, 2017, 11:14 pm

That sounds lovely, Janna 🙂


Comment from Janna
Time: March 2, 2017, 11:28 pm

It really is, I’m so sick of winter.

I’m a BIG believer in perennials and bulbs. That way I can plant more stuff next year! My garden looks like a floral riot.

Last summer was my first since retirement, and my garden was gonna be gorgeous.
Cancer had other ideas.

Put sprinklers on timers on all my flowerbeds, before my surgery. Plants all made it through summer, but all the weeds also appreciated the water! Surgery and chemo are over and I’m slowly returning to what passes for ‘normal’. THIS year my gardens are gonna be awesome!!


Comment from Armybrat
Time: March 2, 2017, 11:41 pm

Hubby and I have the same problem with winter in New England. We spent a lot of time in the Midwest, where the seasons know their place and each is allotted 3 months. Now the 3 months of winter is bitter effing cold and the 3 months of summer is effing hot, but they each only consume 3 months. Then we moved to NY and later MA, where the gray season starts in Oct and ends in late April. Gray skies, snow that turns gray after a day…hell, the most common coat color is BLACK. We’re moving south to FL in just a few more years, because you don’t have to shovel sunshine off the sidewalk. Oh….and it was gray and windy today here in Boston.


Comment from Skandia Recluse
Time: March 2, 2017, 11:54 pm

“hmmm,” he said. “Perhaps I need scripts turned on to post,eh?”

Second attempt

Still winter here. Foot of snow in the drive and a busted snow thrower. Instead of handling important things, I’ve been playing around with a dormant blog because I have 9600 words and no where to put them. It’s a short story about California rebellion against the Union.

The snow can wait until tomorrow. It will still be there as overnight low temps are barely above zero on the Fahrenheit scale.

Hope this works.


Comment from Niña
Time: March 3, 2017, 12:36 am

It was 68 and sunny here today, lovely!


Comment from catnip
Time: March 3, 2017, 5:31 am

The weather’s improving, but we’ve had a hard, dismal winter in the NW. It began snowing on December 15th, and today was about the 6th partly sunny day we’ve had since then. Crocuses and Iris poked tentative tips above ground last week, but with light snows resuming, they’ve suspended operations. One bit of good news is that we beat 1917’s all-time record for January and February precipitation after many years of drier than usual weather. The best news is that it’s staying light outdoors until 5:30 p.m.!


Comment from Niña
Time: March 3, 2017, 5:40 am

Janna, my yard is a disaster, too. I feel your pain!


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: March 3, 2017, 8:21 am

The crocuses in the picture are purple. I took that shot and told Photoshop to ‘make it grayscale’ — and the crocuses disappeared entirely! So I went back to the color photo and told magenta-red-blue to be black and yellow-green to be white and…well, it still looks like shit, but you can see the croci.


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: March 3, 2017, 2:14 pm

Things are looking green here in San Antonio, but we had several periods of freezing temps, so my tropical plants—varieties of oleander, small palms, and Pride of Barbados (aka Red Bird of Paradise)—look crispy fried. We’ll cut them down to the ground and they’ll pop right up again.

We had tornadoes last week in S.A. and my neighborhood. We weren’t hit (spared by 2000 feet as one of the funnels hit the ground, hopped over us, and peeled open houses on the other side), but the winds whipped our trees. My big date palms look trashed. But I have a lovely Chinese fringe tree that is gallantly waving it’s fuschia colored blossoms. They remind me of tiny honeysuckle.

And we are covered in great swathes of bluebonnets over hill and dale.
https://www.google.com/search?q=bluebonnets&num=20&newwindow=1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwigu6jyv7rSAhUDySYKHTdkCGcQ_AUICCgB&biw=1413&bih=675

https://www.google.com/search?q=Pride+of+Barbados+plant&num=20&newwindow=1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMk-jsurrSAhVG1CYKHa75DUoQ_AUICSgC&biw=1413&bih=675


Comment from Wolfus Aurelius
Time: March 3, 2017, 2:31 pm

You lucky people with 3 or 4 seasons! We have 2: January and SUMMER (and this year January never arrived), or “Summer” and “Not Quite Summer.” It’s oddly cool (69 F. as a high) today, but soon the entire region will sink back into that thick, sticky mix of snail slime, human sweat, burned oil, and skunk pee known here as “the warm weather.” I want to shoot the weather readers on TV when they say, “Overnight it’ll be muggy and mild.”

People, if it’s muggy, IT AIN’T MILD!!!

(Can you tell I hate where I live??)


Comment from Gromulin
Time: March 3, 2017, 4:41 pm

The weather here on the coast south of SF is usually ass backwards (like many things here). January and February can be beautiful sunny and warm. July and August foggy and cold. September and October are the most glorious months of the year, warm and sunny. My commute home in summer usually loses 30 degrees F in 25 miles…my dash thermo will read 100 in the parking lot at work, and 71 when I pull into my driveway. This time of year is best for wildflowers though. Calla Lily grows wild all over the coast, along with many yellow things I can’t name but are beautious none the less. Now, if the ground would just dry out enough to plant something, after 27″ of rain this season….


Comment from Veeshir
Time: March 3, 2017, 5:32 pm

It’s been a terrible winter here in AZ. I’ve had to wear socks for 2 months straight.
My friends in Florida have been making fun of me.


Comment from Anonymous
Time: March 3, 2017, 8:14 pm

Are those crocuses? Hard to tell when they’re not in color.
They could be crocuses.

or

RUSSIANS?
Probably RUSSIANS!!!!
RUSSIANS!!!!!!!!!!!
They’re in my shirt cupboard, and Kislyak and Putin are in the kitchen now eating my wife’s jam! They’re climbing up my legs!

The Russians are coming!
Emergency! Emergency! Everybody to get from street!

Sigh…you are so lucky living in the UK.

Our lipstick sage has been blooming for over a week, and the redbuds are out, the forsythia is flowering too.
I should probably pay more attention to that and much much less to the lunacy from the coasts.

Is it Gin O’Clock yet?


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: March 3, 2017, 8:33 pm

It’s 8:30 🙁


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: March 3, 2017, 9:22 pm

Tis the season to pore over seed catalogs 🙂

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