Spring Resumes, Life Continues

Yesterday brought rain and then wet snow and then rain again. A low cloud ceiling shrank the world to just town and the very bottom edges of the mountainsides, and a heavy blanket of snow smothered all it touched: houses, cars, roads, sidewalks.


Today is a different world: sunny, sixty degrees and dry. The sodden blanket of snow has vanished as completely as if it had never existed, except in deep shade, and up on the peaks and mountainsides above town. Our tomato plants survived last night's low of 22 degrees thanks to the warm thermal mass of their wall-o-waters the insulation of a row cover thrown over the top to keep the snow out. (The water in the tubes of the wall-o-waters was 44 degrees this morning, amazing when the low last night was half that. Those protective plastic and water teepees saved the tomato plants!) The spinach is sprouting huge dark green leaves, the lettuce springing up, the tulips are blooming. And in the wild shortgrass prairie restoration that is our front yard, the pasque flowers, those heralds of spring in the grasslands, sprang back up this morning as soon as the snow blanket melted off. The native pincushion cactus that a friend gave me last year is crowned with three pale pink blossoms that look like exploding stars. (Thanks, Ellen!)

Spring in the Rockies reminds me that life, the most important miracle of all, continues no matter what. That's a blessing.