Is it Winter enough for ya?

I tried to surrender this morning, but no one could see my white flag through the falling, blowing, and drifting snow. Since my surrender wasn’t accepted, I returned to the garage and started the snow blower. For the second time in as many days, the entire driveway needed to be cleared of several inches of snow, plus the leavings of the township plow at the end of the drive next to the road. Another inch or so of fresh flakes have accumulated since I quit blowing. I’ll scrape with  the back blade later today or tomorrow morning.

Twin Cities Snow and Cold Index, year-to-date

This spring I will watch with glee as the snow melts and thaws take their toll on the driveway ice cover. I suspect that someone needs to adjust the elements in the index because the snow and cold don’t capture the pain and aggravation caused by winter rainfall followed by below freezing temperatures. I’m disconcerted to see that our winter so far only ranks as moderate (green). It’s certainly felt more like severe, but maybe that’s my age showing, or the missing rain plus freezing.

In the hope and belief that spring will actually arrive sometime within the next four to six weeks, my plan is to restart my morning exercises, deferred while recovering from a tooth extraction, plus relax, drink coffee, and read in the house until spring thaw is underway. Then we’ll get out and enjoy the sights and sounds of flowing water and returning migrants at the feeders and around the Sunrise River pools. If the Arctic and Antarctic are melting, Minnesota can’t be too far behind.

Late February

By Ted Kooser

The first warm day,

and by mid-afternoon

the snow is no more

than a washing

strewn over the yards,

the bedding rolled in knots

and leaking water,

the white shirts lying

under the evergreens.

Through the heaviest drifts

rise autumn’s fallen

bicycles, small carnivals

of paint and chrome,

the Octopus

and Tilt-A-Whirl

beginning to turn

in the sun. Now children,

stiffened by winter

and dressed, somehow,

like old men, mutter

and bend to the work

of building dams.

But such a spring is brief;

by five o’clock

the chill of sundown,

darkness, the blue TVs

flashing like storms

in the picture windows,

the yards gone gray,

the wet dogs barking

at nothing. Far off

across the cornfields

staked for streets and sewers,

the body of a farmer

missing since fall

will show up

in his garden tomorrow,

as unexpected

as a tulip.

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