Life in Geezerville: Signs of Spring Edition

Spring is not a "thing" that is set in cement even though the calendar says that spring comes March 21st (in this hemisphere). I'm writing this blogpost on May 16, and I can honestly say that spring has finally come to this elevation. At a lower elevation, spring arrived about 2 months ago...but here--yesterday was the first time I could say that spring had arrived. 

There a few telling signs. The weather is a bit warmer. Granted our high today will be 65, but the low will be above freezing at 35. On the other hand, Saturday the low will be 30. We are still getting a few nights that fall below 32 degrees. The temps will not get much warmer until June...and then it's almost summer in the rest of the world, but here it will be late spring. 

Another sign is the forest. Three days ago there was just a faint haze of green over the acres of aspen that grow in this neck of the words. Today the haze is more solid. The leaves are about the size of quarters now. I swear I can see them growing, it's happening that fast.

Another sign is the forest floor. While the canopy is greening up, the berries, wild flowers and grasses that thrive under the canopy, are starting to emerge from the dingy gray-brown forest floor. The wild rose bushes are beginning to show some greenery. As for the wild flowers...this is dandelion time. Don't stick up your nose---they are related to the chrysanthemum afterall--in the early spring, the dandies line the roadways with a brilliant stripe of yellow flowers. In a couple of weeks, the fields be covered in a blanket of yellow. And a couple of weeks later, the yellow flowers were become white puffballs starting the cycle again. Right now, the dandies are quite pretty. Dandelions, in a nicely trimmed lawn are pests, but in the wild they are among the first wild flowers to bloom, telling all of us that spring is in the air. 

Wandering the forest floor are the deer, munching away on the tiny green leaves. I can't imagine what they are feeling to finally have some tasty leaves to chew. I've yet to see any fawns. They won't come out for a couple of weeks. In the meantime, they are hidden by the flora on the forest floor. If this year is like other years, the mama deer will nudge their fawns out from the canopy and introduce them to me. 

Another sign of spring is pile after pile of dead leaves. The aspens shed their leaves in the autumn, the snow comes and the leaves molder under the snow, and turn from yellow to brown. Now that the snow is melted, the leaves are still there. I don't rake the leaves, I blow them back into the forest as there are a lot of nutrients in those dead leaves that the aspens love. 

Spring is in the air and we love it. The high country is waking up from the winter. The skies are bluebird blue and visibility is 24 miles (according to the weather bug on my iPhone). At my other Geezerville location, in the desert, it's 95 degrees today and the spring flowers have gone. The desert heat is just beginning while at 6500 feet, Mother Nature has yet to turn on heat. Both locations are good. The desert location is perfect for winter; the mountain location is perfect for summer. We're living the dream enjoying both of them. If you can do it, go for it. In the meantime, remember, we're all in this together.