SIGNS OF LIFE!!!

This started as a comment on another blog but I’m going to expand on it here. Cuz I’ve been sick all week and I feel laaaazy.

I don’t want to jinx anything by speaking of it….but spring is finally- tentatively- peeking through the doorway. With our last 2 surprise snowstorms and ongoing ominous weather, she’s arrived late. I have a feeling those buds that usually are so slow and deliberate in unfolding are just going to explode into green all at once to make up for lost time! It would be a very un-Alaskan spring! More of a taste of springs past- my childhood back east in New Jersey.

As Lo and I dinked around the yard yesterday I was elated to see tiny little signs of life. Little pink pearlescent balls of rhubarb and rosewood, the green tips of iris leaves just poking out from last fall’s decaying flora. A couple lazy bumble bees were buzzing around. That familiar rich smell of warming earth was carried on the breeze as we took stock of our “playgarden” almost completely emerged from the snow. We had a little visitor on our deck-a little baby mouse too young yet to have much fear or to be considered pesky. It scurried here and there nibbling on discarded birdseed while we watched.

So cute! The snowshoe hares have been venturing out looking for food as well. Their snow white fur is almost all brown now.

I’m just itching to till the soil of our little plot next to the house where we grow purple potatoes, sugar snap peas, and carrots. The visqueen covering our greenhouse was destroyed by wind and snowpack so we’re going to put up the hard plastic stuff when Huz gets back. I can’t wait to get our tomato and sunflower starts transplanted and start some other goodies in the greenhouse. I think I’ll enlist the kids in coming up with ideas to make our greenhouse more attractive!

We don’t have a “yard” per se. No green grass to mow or fertilize. What we do have is alpine tundra. Our property is shaped like a pie wedge. It contains conifers, alder, willow and aspen-fun to make a “fort” and hide under but too stunted to climb. We have a nice variety of wildflowers that bloom all through summer: and of course the beautiful fireweed that blooms a brilliant magenta towards the end of the season .

It’s leaves then turn from yellow to orange to red and maroon-just amazing to see our valley and mountainsides covered in those fiery colors. Sometimes we’ll get a dusting of snow over it and the juxtaposition is breathtaking.

In the winter our yard is a wonderland.

We stomp out a labyrinth of trails from one cluster of spruce to the next. And, since we are on a sloping mountainside, we have plenty of places to make slides for sledding. The longest being from our playgarden toward the top of the property, down along side our house, onto the driveway, into the road and if we’re lucky, our sled will make the left turn onto the next road and then a right onto the one after that! A bitchin’ ride.

Yeah. That would be a penguin costume. I have a weird family.

But enough of winter! Onward with Spring!