Bill's Views on Most Everything

Spring is a sometime thing here in Colorado.  We have years where it goes directly from winter to summer.  That is not the case this year.  Spring started showing up in February, and it seems to be stretching until late April at least.  It is mid-month, and a spring storm is on the way.  We are supposed to get lots of rain and snow in the next few days.  March and April are supposed to be our big moisture months.  It looks like this year will hold true.   

We have planted carrots, beets, tomatoes, chard, and shallots.  Then the moisture started.  Perfect.  Usually Carol starts lots of stuff indoors starting in January.  Due to a couple of surgeries that didn’t happen this year.  We will probably be buying more nursery starts than normal.   

I turned the sprinkler system on and watered, but I will drain the above ground copper and brass so it won’t freeze with a storm.  It won’t get cold enough to hurt the buried stuff.  It is always a bit of an adventure getting the sprinkling system going, fixing the winter damage.  It was easy this year, only three sprinkler heads needed work.  I got lucky, usually I have to splice the underground piping I chop through doing the spring digging. 

We have been steadily reducing the amount of lawn we have, replacing grass with patio space and Xeric planting.  The law is supposed to be fescue, but much of it is crabgrass.  I had the pre-emergent crabgrass killer, but as in every previous year, I didn’t get it down in time.  Oh well, at least it is green.  

It looks like at least one more snow shoveling session.  I have to be careful with the shoveling, my back doesn’t like much heavy work.  We don’t have a lot of walk, so the job is not too big.  There is one fun part, however.  We have solar panels on the garage roof that are over the walk to the alley.  The snow slides off the panels onto the walk as it warms up after a storm, leaving a good-sized windrow on the walk.  Last year I didn’t get it shoveled soon enough and I had an ice drift to chop out.  Now I get my lazy butt out there and move it out of the way effort it freezes to ice.  It is heavy, and there is a limited space to put it.  I haven’t had to move the snow with the wheelbarrow yet, but the time is coming, maybe this weekend.  

Some of my Facebook Friends are positively rapturous during this annual miracle of renewal.  I usually have a sarcastic remark to make about their posts, but in truth I an just as much a romantic as they are.  I first appreciated the miracle of spring when I was cooped up with the measles when I was in grade school.  When I was finally able to go out in the bright daylight, the trees had leafed out.  From bare limps to glorious green in the time I was confined to the house.  Now I always make a point of watching the changes, usually when I am sweeping up all the trash the maples drop.