April Snow Showers and Flowers in the House

April 4, 2014 -- no kidding! There's a garden under there somewhere.

Just last week a long winter's worth of snow was nearly all gone, and then on Friday we got dumped on with six inches of the heavy wet white stuff! But today, as I was out riding my bike and wearing a cotton sweater and no gloves, I noticed that it's all gone, again. Isn't April just a barrel of fun, though?

So I'm delighted that another floriferous blog tour has rolled around courtesy of Flower Jane so I can look longingly at the lovely blossoms plucked from people's gardens, even as I bloomify my home's interior using my frequent excuse that I'm supporting a local independent business, while eyeing my patches of dirt for any sign of emerging life.

I've had this sweet little orchid since early February, when I brought it home from the co-op, and I'm so pleased that it's blossoms are so long lasting. I think it must like this cool spot on the buffet in a north window.









These daffodils, which I bought today, aren't really ready for their closeup yet, but I'm guessing they'll open up and look quite cheery and bright by the weekend, when we're supposed to get another round of slushy snow.

Tres (the big white-and-gray cat in the window) eyes the daffodils.

And orange tulips! What fun! I placed them in a heavy pitcher and set that in a big ceramic bowl, hoping that will be sufficient to keep my three bad kitties from knocking them over.

The daffodils in their little glass tumbler cut from a Carlsberg beer bottle I may need to move to a safer spot, though.

Bad kitty! (This is Phinney, about 9 months old.)

Snow — just another spring ephemeral

A note: I wrote this for the March 8, 2004, edition of the late Minneapolis Observer, a short-lived newspaper that my husband and I used to publish. It's topicality is apropos this spring, while at the same time revealing how unusual it is even here in Minnesota to get this much snow this late in the season. Still, it's a reminder: it's all ephemeral, nonetheless. —Sharon

On Thursday, my friend Sandra was positively gleeful at the prospect of 6 inches or more of snow. She is an avid winter athlete and once cross-country skied on Theodore Wirth golf course after a particularly late April snowfall, much to the chagrin of the groundskeepers.

By March, my attitude toward winter is one of indifference. After 47 winters, I am no longer impatient for spring to begin—I know it will come soon enough. And I am no longer dismayed by late-season snowfalls, even after a long thaw has dangled the promise of an early spring only to snatch it away again. I know it won’t last.

I think of this snow as the first of the spring ephemerals. In gardening, we usually think of ephemerals as those early bloomers that disappear, leaves and all, once summer is underway: the bulbs we plant in fall; the woodland wildflowers that bloom before the trees leaf out, then retreat under the ground again.

But snow is one of these too. Consider how profoundly it transforms the landscape in winter—the mounds that turn our sidewalks into valleys, the mountains in the corners of parking lots, the bright white clingy coat that forces the arborvitae to bow down in homage to the forces of nature, the snow “flowers” on mugho pines. And then it all melts away. Vanishes. A re-creation of the great ice age, in mere months, and then nothing. I know I’m odd, but the whole transformation from winter’s snow-sculpted landscape to flat, muddy early spring—even before the greening of spring at its peak—fascinates me. Every year.

So as I went about my business on Friday while clumps of wet snow dropped heavily from the trees as frequently as the big sticky flakes fell from the sky, I was glad I didn’t have to look at the dirty grey-black patches of ice that had been everywhere and will be exposed again soon. We can put off cleaning the yard a little longer. I just discovered one of my boots has a leak but my wet foot doesn’t make me miserable because I’m distracted by the unfolding drama. I look around and marvel at a fleeting winter wonderland that soon will be no more.