So, we had a rather massive snowstorm over the weekend. (This goes back to winter and spring being very confused seasons, which we talked about a few months ago.)
Now, it’s not necessarily unheard of to have a snowstorm in the middle of May. I’ve seen it snow into June before. (Invariably this happens when I am unprepared, such as when I’m wearing shorts and sandals and am nowhere close to home.)
The June snowstorms tend to be ugly things, accompanied mostly by wind and not so much by actual precipitation. May snowstorms, on the other hand, are evil for other reasons.
Maybe it’s just May that is evil in general. It tends to be warm, hanging out in the 80s, to make you think that summer is coming. This is, in fact, to lure you into a false sense of security so you assume it’s safe to do things like plant vegetables or flowers, or start using your spigots, or turn on your sprinkler system.
And then, once you have done any or all of the above, the temperature crashes down below freezing. And then it snows.
But it’s not a nice, innocent snow, like you get in December or February. The weather’s not only fooled you, it’s fooled the flowers, the vegetables, the trees, your grass, the bushes. Everything has leaves. Everything has flowers.
And the snow is different. It’s below freezing, but only barely, and so you get this heavy, wet snow, and it attaches itself to the leaves and the flowers in giant honking blobs, and then everything gets crushed, and branches get torn off of bushes and trees, and my blueberry is completely flat and I don’t know what to do about that.
And it’s kind of funny, because in general, we as a society are rather blase when it comes to snowstorms, but when it’s this late in the season, we mass panic, not because of the roads or because some of us have taken our heated bed pads off (mmm, best invention ever), but because our flowers! Our vegetables! And then we come up with elaborate rigs to protect them, and go out with brooms several times a day to knock snow off of the bushes and trees to protect them from breakage.
(And then the snow gets down the back of your coat and in your eye.)
I think everything’s survived, though (with the exception of the blueberry). Some of the bushes are looking a bit flat, but hopefully they’re perk back up.
And maybe spring will stick this time.