Spring is...still trying to spring

I get the whole metaphor about spring and new birth. And frankly, having birthed 4 children with 15 in circumference heads, I'm going to say now, like I said then (each and every time), can we just get this over with? Spring in the great white north doesn't occur as it does with most places; it doesn't happen with the temperatures slowly rising and the spring jackets being broken out, with the grass gradually turning green and the temperature slowly moving up from "winter" to "spring" on the thermometer.

Nope. That's not how it happens in Minnesota. Here, we get a "teaser" in February. It's a day when the warm wind blows and melts all the snow and you SKIP the spring jacket because, c'mon, it's like 65 degrees. We breathe a collective sigh that THIS year, spring has come early. Only to awaken one morning with 6 inches of snow on the ground and a desire to haul the covers over our head AKA groundhog and come out when it REALLY is spring. This ugly cycle continues for...oh about 2 months. We can count on...seriously...count on, one more snow storm sometime the first 2 weeks of April. Now, normally I don't mind those (and this year I minded even less because I was in New York) because I know that after that spring IS here.

Well, I think spring arrived last week. We had some pretty warm weather, reaching into the mid 70s. Then Saturday the temps dropped into the 50s, still warm by "north" standards. Then Sunday and yesterday we were hit with April Showers. COLD April showers. Like back to the 30s and 40s. And windy. But Mother Nature is going to tease us northerners with an 80 degree day on Thursday (which is what the weather men say...but I'm not biting). Before plunging us 20 plus degrees and bringing on more of those April showers.

Personally, I think Mother Nature is a vicious bitch. It's not like we don't already have to endure 8 months of winter in Minnesota, she has to taunt us with the prospect of spring, but first, she has to get us to resign ourselves to the fact that spring will only happen when we least expect it. When SHE says.

I still have half of my roses to uncover (I did the ones in front of the house on Sat), not to mention digging up a HUGE hydrangea (which has become unruly it is that big), cutting back all my sedum heads (I leave them up in the fall because of the pretty red color), raking up all my rotted hosta leaves (which I neglected last fall...won't do that again), digging up all of my lady's mantel (about 10 plants that have been there for about 10 years) that I have for the past 5 years said I was going to do because I HATE the flowers on it, so I have stuff to do. I also have to find a spot for a 5 foot tall Korean Dwarf (Bwahahaha) Lilac that was displaced when our septic was removed. But I'm NOT doing it in 38 degrees and winds from the NNW at 22 MPH.

Not to mention the two huge dump truck loads of black dirt we have STILL piled in our back yard from where the city switched us from septic to city sewer back in JANUARY that need to be spread so that we can reseed. Although the dog seems to enjoy the piles of black dirt, I am less enthusiastic. Especially after those April showers.

So, as I get back to the "birthing" metaphor, I'm gonna say now as I did then, that I went for the numbing effect of the epidural. My epidural of choice these days is Bud Light Lime...because as the ad says..."seasons change, tastes don't".