I’m always surprised when the spring weather finally arrives. Week after week of grinning and bearing it, my jaw becomes slack with the first week of above-zero weather. It’s irrational, I know, to think that it wouldn’t come, but it does take so bloomin’ long, doesn’t it? And by March, I’m so ready to wear a sundress, it hurts.
Our yard is always the last one on the street to thaw. This is no mild exaggeration. The shadow cast by the titanic spruce in the front yard keeps everything nice and cool.
Not to mention, our side of the road has no sidewalk, so the plow is happy to push the collection of flakes onto our front yard. This makes the kids quite happy, of course, but it really takes ages to melt.
And the salt? Forget about it. The backyard is a hill, you may recall, with a large compound wall at its farthest point. Our lovely neighbour, the one who passes us down bottles of grappa and wine on a rigged up pulley system, clears off his garden area by dumping the piles of snow onto our hill from above. By mid-May, his seedlings have been transplanted into cold boxes and are thriving, and we are still trying to disperse the snow so it can melt. It’s a small price to pay for good wine. And good Roma tomatoes.
At the end of the week, we’re taking a trip south, where temperatures have reached high double digits. The snowdrops and crocuses are in full bloom. A friend of mine is already talking about the rabbits that are plaguing her backyard crocuses. If only! I’m just trying to keep the blasted cat off the bird feeder.
At the very least, I have agreed to help her tidy up the garden. I think I might swoon from the intensity of it. I’ll kick off my shoes and let my feet sink through the crispy brown grass into the wet, cold soil underneath. This should cool the fever blister.
Already twice this week, we’ve thrown open the windows and aired the place out. I wandered around room-to-room, in a blissed-out state, daydreaming of line hung quilts and crisp white sheets. I had to sit down, lest my eyes roll back and John discover me in a state of unbridled happiness on the hallway floor, speaking in tongues and gulping back that fresh, green air.
We’ve got some early spring plans: rig up a clothesline, shake out the winter carpets, paint the basement floor. What does your Spring Fever look like?
Anne Boulton is an avid gardener who lives in Sudbury. Visit her blog at www.greenboots.ca or contact her at [email protected].
Posted by Laurel Myers
