SNOW ON THE DAFFODILS

I’m sitting here in my recliner on this cold April Sunday morning sipping hot chocolate and watching it snow while a cheery fire burns in the little stove. Mike says spring here in our corner of the world is his least favorite season. You think it’s getting warm and then it’s cold again. Well, at least it’s been that way this year. And Chris comments that some years we don’t have spring – so true! – which reminds me that some years we don’t get any fruit at the farm. I would love it if our new apple trees would reward our efforts and bear this year.

I’ve mentioned before that my grandmother Ina often left the farm after Christmas to spent the winter and “mud season” with relatives in Washington and Oregon. From Portland, OR, on May 5, 1949, her daughter Myrtle (a.k.a. Aunt Lynn) wrote to her brother Earle as follows:

“Ma [Ina] left this A.M. for Drain and will stay two weeks or so. I warned her to watch the rise of rivers, for last year she was caught here by the flood and couldn’t even cross the Columbia to go to Seattle. This year it will be worse for the government survey shows that the snow is the heaviest on record in the Rockies. So far, we have only reasonably high water caused by heavy rains last weekend. It snowed in the mountain regions. And with continued cold high up the snow will hold and go at once like it did last year. I dread it – wish the weather would begin now to be warm. It seldom rises here beyond 60 degrees, and that will never start the snow.” [I think she means that when it’s 60 at low altitude, it’s still cold enough at higher elevations to keep the snow from melting.]

Well, extra snow in the mountains is not a problem this year, and it will likely be another dry summer. So far this season, we’ve had sun, clouds, and wind but very little precipitation. People here dislike dull, rainy days – and they like snow even less – but the fact is that without moisture, we’re in drought.

Mike had planned a motorcycle ride yesterday but “wimped out” (his words) due to cold temps and wind at upper elevations. Well, it was a wise decision. When in doubt, don’t. Instead, he weeded the daffodils, bless his heart, and I got groceries. KW