We obsess over "Spring" as no other state in the union does because in no other state does winter last nine months. We don't really have Spring. We have Winter, Summer, and Breakup and Freezeup. There are no early crocuses for us. It's mid-March and I still have at least two feet of snow everywhere. I'm still wearing my winter boots and down jacket.
It's time for it to be over! For one thing, my fingers are starting to poke out of my little red, knit gloves with the texting fingers.
We've had a week of wind, and all the snow is off the trees now. I no longer have to go out with my hood up to avoid a big glob of snow down the back of my neck. Wind in Fairbanks is uncommon and also uncommonly nasty. Today there is yet again wind. Temperature: 1°F. Wind chill: -12°. Looks like I'll be dressing ludicrously puffy again.
It would be nice to see my front step again. And open the gate to the dog yard in both directions and more than just a little 30° swing that allows us to squeeze in and out.
All the snow and ice has melted off my car! Yay! True, there is still one glob gluing the aluminum-covered cardboard onto the front, but if I park facing the sun, that will go, too. As soon as it is regularly above 20° all the time, I can take that sucker off! Plus I can start saving on my electric bill by not having to plug in the car, too. We still aren't hitting that yet. I'm getting impatient. Everyone in Fairbanks is getting impatient.
We have about twelve hours of light a day now! Mind you, the angle of the sun as it grazes the top of the world here means that compared to you in lower latitudes, our sun is wimpy. But for us, it's glorious!
Another Rite of Spring is having the hard pack (snow) removed from ones driveway. This will happen soon, and will result in mountains of SNIRT (mixed snow and dirt) everywhere. The dogs love this. It always turns into a huge sniff-fest, as dirt that has been under the snow for nine months is suddenly revealed.
This is from a couple years ago. I'm hoping I'll have huge piles of snirt sometime this week. Ole is doing his best to remove the hard pack from the dog yard.
When the snow goes away we get to revisit Fall, and see all the dead plants and even some of the Fall colors. The trees will be bare, and everything will be rather brownish-red. We'll be able to look into each others' yards and see all the junk the snow was covering up: cars, trucks, wrecks, garbage of all sorts, lawn furniture, toys (of all sizes) and so on.
The retreat of the snow is hard on my dogs, as they live for winter and love snow, both playing in it, on it, and through it. And peeing on it. We are approaching the season where they frantically search for a bit of snow to pee on. It takes them a while to get used to dirt again, and it is funny to watch Sofia find a tiny spot of snow and try to fit herself on it just to pee.
When the snow goes away all of Ole's fur rubbings on the fence are taken away by birds, who then build fuzzy nests.
Unfortunately, retreat of the snow also means emergence of the all the poop that has been frozen all winter. I don't want to elaborate further.
Right now people are looking up, squinting at the branches of their trees and saying, "Is that a bud?" It's not, not yet. But soon! One of the most exciting seasonal events here is Green Up. One day all the trees are bare, with tiny green buds and the next day BOING, and we have LEAVES! And once again our junk is hidden from the neighbors.
You could say that for the 6 hours that it takes for all the trees to burst into leaves, we have Spring. But once the leaves are out it's Summer, baby!
But I'm getting ahead of myself here. It still looks like this out there. Sigh.
