It is May 9th , in the upper 80's and feels like summer. We skipped right over spring and went from winter to summer's heat. Early March was wet and chilly, we seemed to be headed for a warm up and on the 25th (yes, that 25th) I was back in my winter coat, chilled to the bone. All of April it seemed we couldn't sustain any attempt to warm more that a couple of days at a time. Up the thermometer would struggle only to fall back into a wet chill with near frost at night. If the sun came out it would be steamy warm but once clouds returned - as surely they did - it would chill again.It seemed as if we looked out at an endless procession of somber, grey days with the prospect of drizzle or rain ever present. I truly hold no responsibility but it did almost seem as if my inner chill was mirrored in the weather pattern. Finally, this weekend we held warm sunshine for consecutive days.Like the flowers along my side yard by the drive, we seemed to automatically turn our heads upward and in the direction of the sun, drinking in its belated warm glow.
There is an old southern phrase for the cold snap that seems to occur at the end of April-first of May: it is "spirea winter." It is named for the bushes so common in this part of the world - a plant usually left to grow long slender branches which in the aforementioned time frame burst into small white blooms , looking somewhat like a dusting of snow on the branches and coinciding with a cold snap. I think there is a related folk thinking that there is cause and effect between the white blossoms and the colder weather. Well, this spring was so cool that one didn't even notice the spirea winter.
Despite the chilly spring we found morel muchrooms (3!) in the shady side yard. That was a pleasant surprise.
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