Really Cold.

Cold. Really. Blazing sun and cloudless and still in the teens at ten o'clock and as hard to believe as it was a few days ago that we'd see evening snow on the heels of a sixty-degree afternoon is this forecast: mid-sixties and sun both weekend days, and upper fifties to low sixties for most of next week. Just like that, spring comes to February. No precip in the ten-day, though. One imagines that one will have to water the pansies, the transplanted azaleas. One worries over the January shortfall. And a quick check of the drought monitor


shows that we've slipped back into drought. That's us -- the square one right there in the middle with the D0/Abnormally Dry yellow swath sneaking back across it. So I'm deeply torn: I could use me some porch-sitting days next week, would not mind at all prepping for class outside rather than in, but drought? So soon? Time to look into rain barrels for this old house, I do suppose. Though it should here be said that rain barrels do probably require one wee thing to really function properly...

But so help me, though the following is ANYLF heresy, I will fret about it all next week if only I could slide a window or two open for even just an hour this weekend. I am starting to get the cabin fever. I am starting to measure the daffodils' progress against my own mental health. I could use a crocus sighting. I saw a cardinal in the yard this morning. Cardinals aren't even worth mentioning, but there one was, down by the tarped-over lawn mower, and I thought, see? See? Hang on.