But it is only April...

We hit 72 degrees today. It felt wonderful to walk outside without a winter coat, scarf, and gloves, trudging through slushy mush on the way to the garage. I was able to clean out the flower bed in the backyard, scraping up the dead leaves and detritus left by winter.

It seems like an especially hard-won spring this year. Kathy’s mom died in September, so we had our first winter holidays without her. Her mom’s birthday was in January, another special day to remember. Then of course we had over 100 inches of snow. It seemed that we woke up most mornings with a fresh layer of two or three inches to clear off the driveway. (I’m a fanatic about getting down to the concrete after a snow. If you drive over it, the stuff turns to ice, am I right?) And the wind—it never seemed to quit this winter, battering the house from every direction, and freezing your ears if you weren’t careful outside.

Now we could finally be climbing out of those frigid icy days. Now you see people who’ve been holed up in their houses for the past five months doing the same springtime things you’re doing. The motorcycles have reappeared, with helmet-less riders that the ER nurses call “organ donors.” Children have flooded the streets with kickballs, baseballs, tennis balls—all sorts of things coming at you as you drive down the road, including the youngsters themselves.

Now I can take Kodiak in the backyard, tethered to a long leash, and he can protect his territory with his deep throated woof, while I sit secure on the deck with a new book.

How does one blog in the summer? My usual summer plan is to park myself outside and read books until it’s too dark to see. I wonder if I can keep up my blog responsibilities: writing and keeping up with friends’ blogs when I don’t have to sit trapped in the house by howling winter blasts. It will be a challenge.