“Springtime in the Rockies is not for the faint of heart,” I growl, head underneath my pillow trying to drown out a snowplow scraping through the early morning silence. April tries all of our patience around here. We woke to 15 degrees this morning, wind blowing backwards from the East, wind chill in the deep negatives.
I pull on alpaca socks, hunker beneath a thick blanket and pad downstairs to brew some coffee. I haven’t opened the blinds yet, but the snowplow gives good indication of what I’ll see when I do push them up for the daily weather channel outside. Maybe I’ll check back next week to see if it’s any better.
The good news is we are not suffering from allergy season just yet, as are my many friends who are plagued with baby Spring green, lambs jumping, trees bursting forth with delicate blossoms and song. No, the air here is quite pure, being frozen as it is. Yay for us.
It was that mid-March tease that makes us discontent in April. That, and what was once deep, fluffy winter snow is now ugly hunks of ice lying about in dirty, raggedy patches. It’s hideous. The good news is that whatever new white stuff comes out of the sky melts and we might still get through the rest of the wood pile.
The weather is truly deplorable…until you get outside and experience the clean, cool world that is grey, bare and squishy by afternoon, but otherwise not painful like the previous couple of months.
I thought that if we ignored April, she might pass on through without creating drama and leaving destruction in her wake as in years past. We can engage her moody weather as a graced extension to get writing projects done, and maybe one more Netflix binge. I plan to procrastinate on home and garden endeavors in which the rest of the world is already now ensconced. The grill remains in the shed behind an ice dam.
I no sooner think, “Outdoor activities, pssh!” I hear the neighbors bumping around outside and I open the door to say hello. The little family is donned in ski caps and snow pants. Tor went skiing last weekend. Oh. He’s loading up to go again today. Dang it! He’s just blown my justification for holing up another day.
I stoke up the fire and open windows. The house is warm and really doens’t need a fire, but a woman’s soul does. I love fire. Soon the temp inside will up to 73 degrees, which means I’ll then have to crack open the slider and open some windows. I take the pillows and blankets out to air on the line. Fresh air is healthy, and fire makes April bearable when in years past, it made me want to roll over into the grey sludge and gasp my last dying breaths. (That and my beautiful Christmas lily that was a couple months late in blooming.)
I’m a master fire starter now. I could be a Survivor hero…with just the right mix of phone book pages, cardboard boxes, split kindling split paper thin, two-inch kindling, dry pine, a flue that pulls the air up, not belching out clouds of smoke that choke the fire starter.
For a kid who was too frightened to light a match, much less coax flames into a small inferno, I feel pretty good about this, yes, even after sizzling my ring finger knuckle off of my right hand. If knuckles were fingerprints, I’d have to use another finger. James bought me deerskin leather gloves, but in a quick move to stoke up the fire before running out the door, I rubbed my knuckle across the red hot glass door.
I put on my trail shoes and walk to the post office. Big glops of snow plop down on my head and into my shirt. Whew! I grab a glob of snow and put it on my knuckle. Wish I was up skiing. What a beautiful world it is out here.