So Much for That Early Spring

I'll admit, I had been tempted.  As these abnormally warm, 50-degree Iowa winter days have drifted ever closer toward March, my thoughts have been following a parallel path toward spring and its likely premature arrival.  This usually bitter season has been a wimp from the start -- likely, it was reported this week, to be the first EVER in which temperatures failed to descend to zero.  We have had a few dustings of snow, but nothing to actually interfere.  I know, because I have been watching -- waiting for an opportunity to put my manly snowblower through its paces.  As the months have drifted by instead of snow, I could have largely gotten by with a kitchen spatula for all the driveway clearing I have needed to do.  Yes, I have fired up the blower a couple of times, but it was more out of longing than necessity. 

So, I was tempted.  After all, news reports have been filled with dangerously early buds on trees, and suspicious signs of crocuses tempting fate.  And already I have been thinking ahead to the weekend's work of reorganizing the greenhouse, setting up the seeding cups and filling them with potting soil in preparation for next week's official launch of the planting season.  To be sure, mowing season is almost certainly weeks away, but the though had crossed my mind that one of these days I would need to beg, again, for help from my mechanical friends with the exchange of the mowing deck for the snowblower on my garden tractor.  In fact, I had had that thought this very week.  That I didn't act upon the idea, I must confess, has less to do with prudence than procrastination.  "What's the hurry?" I asked myself.  "There will be time enough for that kind of work."  And so the snowblower remained at the ready.

Yesterday, while having lunch with a friend, I learned that snow was in the forecast.  "Really?" I asked.  I had understood the prospects to include mere rain -- like that which had already been falling all morning; rain...in February!  "Yes, snow.  At least according to the latest report."  I heard him, but I'll admit that I didn't much believe it.

Well, the joke is on me -- and the snow.  Letting Tir out early for his morning rounds, the porch light illuminated the crystal carpet stretched plush and wall to wall; horizon to horizon. 



Snow frosting deck rails, branches, fences and mailboxes. 

The garden site looks like a pond.

Snow windblown onto window sills and caking rooftops -- and...

...covering the driveway.


 The good news is that I finally got to use the snowblower. 

This may well be the only time procrastination saves the day.