Okay, perhaps spring hasn't sprung absolutely but, but as a minimum it's in the method of springing. Here's how I can tell:
1. The snow is almost gone from our yard. The 4-foot mounds of snow on either side of our driveway—to which new snow was being added just 12 days ago—have diminished to just a half-inch coating of icy slush on one side. We can walk from the back door to the shed without sinking in past our ankles. The garden beds are completely clear of snow, and there's a clear, if rather mushy, path to them from the house. Granted, there's still one little patch of snow by the cherry bushes and another behind the garden, where our new hardy kiwis are...but hey, they're hardy; they can handle it.
2. It's presently a balmy 41 tiers out, heading for a excessive of 58. Yeah, it is now not what you would probable usually don't forget as a warmness and first-rate day, however for the reason that less than two weeks in the beyond we have been snowed in, venturing out of doors simplest to thrust back the buildup with our shovels, this feels certainly tropical. We're no longer geared up to ditch our coats yet, however at the least we can on occasion task out in our lighter-weight spring coats in place of our heavy winter ones.
Three. It's First Washday! The fleece sheets we stripped faraway from mattress very last week are virtually fluttering merrily on the road. They might also nevertheless need a short touch-up within the dryer tonight to get them clearly dry, but at the least they may spend most of the day basking inside the solar rather than an hour tumbling in a metallic box.
Four. Brian rode his motorcycle to artwork these days, for the primary time thinking about fall. There were surely severa days closing week that probable could have been heat enough for him to journey, and with Daylight Savings Time now beginning in advance than spring has formally all started, the moderate level wouldn't had been a trouble both?But he wanted to watch for the snow to melt at the least typically away before braving the roads. Getting up and down some of those hills turn out to be unsafe enough inside the automobile; he wasn't organized to cycle down roads nonetheless intently obstructed thru mounds of snow.
5. All the seeds for this year's lawn are in reality started. The tiny parsley, leek, and broccoli sprouts whose development I said right here 3 weeks in the past in the intervening time are big, healthful seedlings, and that they've been joined with the aid of newly began marigolds, brussels sprouts, and 3 types of tomatoes. (The fourth type we are making plans to expand this 12 months is Early Girl, which we are making plans to shop for as nursery flowers from the Rutgers garden sale this spring.)
6. My gardening gloves are out of the shed and resting on the windowsill of the downstairs room. (Side note: Brian thinks that this room, which we had so much trouble coming up with a name for, should now be called the playroom, because that's what our two new kittens seem to think it is. And we use it mostly for playing games, so it works for us too.) I pulled them out yesterday to spray our rosebush, which has been suffering for the several years from blackspot that ends up cutting short the blooming season and denuding the plant of all its leaves by midsummer. Last year I tried spraying it every week, starting in March, with a widely recommended baking soda solution, but the black spots showed up anyway. Eventually I tried a commercial fungicide, but that didn't work either—perhaps because by the time I started it the fungus was too well established. So this year, in a last-ditch attempt to keep the dreaded black spots at bay, I'm starting with the big guns. I'm planning to spray with the fungicide every week, starting now, when the first leaf-buds are just beginning to be visible. And if that still doesn't take care of it, then I think it's time to put this rosebush out of my misery.
7. Our rhubarb plant life are simply beginning to poke their little rosy heads up out of the floor. Just in time, too, as we simply finished the closing of final 12 months's rhubarb that we had saved in the freezer. Brian supplied to make me a rhubarb pie with it to have amusing Pi Day on Saturday, but as he'd already made a pizza pie for dinner, I concept we have to compromise and do a rhubarb crisp as an alternative, which is lots lots much less artwork. And while you don't forget that rhubarb is informally referred to as
8. We've already acquired our supply of matzo for Passover, which is now just a few weeks away. Although we generally go through only about 3 boxes' worth during the week, we find it cheaper to buy a 5-pack, since they go on sale in March and April for far below their regular price. (One of our supermarket sales fliers also included a $4-off coupon for a 5-pack of Streit's Matzo, which our local Stop & Shop was advertising at $5 a pack, so in theory, we should have been able to get five boxes of the stuff for one measly dollar. But as it turned out, although the Stop & Shop was selling 5-packs of other brands for $5 each, the multi-packs of Streit's at the Stop & Shop were only 3 boxes, so the coupon wouldn't work with them. So we ended up getting our matzos from the Shop Rite instead and paying $4, which is still a dollar less than we'd have spent on another brand at Stop & Shop—and waaaaay less than the $15 we'd have paid buying individual boxes at the regular price.)
9. In addition to the matzo and other Passover paraphernalia, local supermarkets are offering sales on such springtime treats as fresh asparagus and cut daffodils. Admittedly, they're probably flown in from warmer climates, since they're definitely not producing yet in New Jersey—but at least it's a sign that things are blooming somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere. (Stores are also prominently displaying Easter candy and other Easter-related goodies, but that hardly counts as a sign of spring, since they always put up those displays the minute Valentine's Day is over.)
10. The flowerbed in our front yard has its first blooms: two tiny purple crocuses. Of course, crocuses usually bloom in February, but this year, under all that snow, we wouldn't have been able to see them if they had. So these two little blossoms, emerging in the wake of the snow, are officially the first flowers of spring. No sign yet of the perennials from thewildflower mix we planted last year, but that's okay; it'll give us a chance to get some stakes into the bed first and, with luck, prevent a repeat of last year's flower flop.
For lo, the winter is almost past, and if the rain isn't over and gone, at least it isn't more bloody snow.
