Spring?

Today is the 18th of March. Winter doesn’t officially depart until later this week, but I think someone needs to remind Mother Nature of her timetable. It is currently 79ºF in Upstate New York. The lilac bush is celebrating out front by showing a few buds on her branches. I love lilacs.

I know it’s 79ºF outside because the first thing this morning I installed the new weather station that had arrived before our departure for Florida a week and a half ago. I guess I’m like a kid during the holiday season when it comes to gadgets, because I was up fairly early to install everything on top of the pole Earl and I had cemented into the ground in a snow storm.

Everything is level and the parts that need to be pointing north are pointing the right way per the compass on my iPhone. I have a nifty display in the kitchen that has all the stats I need. I occasionally bark out the time, temperature, relative humidity and wind speed to anyone that will listen. I even do this when the room is empty.

The installation of the weather station spurred more work in the yard. The solar lights have been installed and the patio furniture has been put in place.

The patio still needs to be powerwashed, but at the very least we can enjoy some sun. The big umbrella was full of dead wasps and they came pouring out when I opened everything up. Usually there’s nests up in there when I first open the umbrella. I guess they didn’t do so well in the last cold snap before the current heat wave.

Tom was delighted to see us when we arrived home last night. I guess he can only entertain himself for so long, even with frequent visits from trusted folks during our absence, because he was quite vocal for a while. To celebrate his 17th spring, he took a walk across the lawn. He can’t hear a thing but apparently he doesn’t care because he seemed quite kittenish in the sunshine.

We still have plenty of work to do in the back lawn to get it ready for the good weather, but we made a good start today. There was talk of putting in a small pond or as the fancypants like to say, “water feature”, during our ride home from Florida. I wouldn’t be surprised if I came home to a backhoe in the back lawn one night this week.

In the meantime, we are quite content with this.