Goodbye, ice!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Just a quick note about where we are sitting in Green Bay right now…nearly all the snow has melted after 2 days of nearly 60 degree weather. I saw my first daffodil sprouts yesterday evening. My ranunculus are hardening off outside (that means slowly adjusting to outside temps and sunshine after growing indoors). And the spring-like sunshine is warm and brilliant.

I spend every spring chopping and shoveling the ice out of the roadside gutters on our cul-de-sac. I’m like the neighborhood’s crazy lady with the ice chopper in hand, throwing huge 8” thick pieces of ice onto the street to melt or using one of my kid’s bright neon orange shovels to push the melting snow water down towards the street’s drains. I am forever trying to speed up the arrival of spring. My husband says that I must really hate the snow and ice but the truth is, Mother Nature is so often in control and there is so little we can do to influence her. She steers the ship and we are merely helpless passengers. But in the springtime, I feel I can at least “help” the arrival of spring by hastening the melting process. So, I will clomp out onto the street with my rain boots and my ice chopper and be the crazy ice lady yet again because for me, spring never comes soon enough!