Spring Has Sprung

I don't know, maybe growing up in Colorado where it's not unusual to receive snow even into the spring months, makes me wonder why so many people here in KS are so upset about the snow and cold temps we've received the last 6 weeks. The past two or three years have been warm dry winters. That has lead to really hot record-breaking summers and extreme drought. First, everybody's mad we haven't had cold moisture producing winters to help with the droughts. Then when we do get snow everybody's complaining that we should have warmer temps and enough with winter. People around here are wishy-washy and spoiled I guess. They don't know what to complain about, and what to be grateful for. Me, I have really appreciated all of the snow we've gotten. I didn't mind the over 20" we received in one week last month.

Well, guess what?! Last weekend we got 5 more inches of snow! It started snowing Saturday. In fact, Evan had to go play his soccer game in the snow, but he didn't mind one bit. He was bundled up warmly, but he said his feet were cold. Lauren and I didn't go to the game, so I don't have any pics of that. Then, when we woke up Sunday morning, it was obvious we had been dumped on while we were sleeping. Our main street that takes us to church was awful which surprised us. We could not tell if the plow had been through yet or not. We had to drive slow and there were drifts on the road. On the way home from church the street still had not been plowed and I think we saw 4 cars that had slid into the ditch just since the couple of hours we had been at church.

Okay, so this pic of the road doesn't look that bad, but trust me it was.

This pic was actually taken 2 days after the 5" of snowfall.

Since last weekend, the snow has melted and we have received lots of rain, sometimes sleet, or tiny pieces of hail. But, the grass has greened up. Oh my has it greened up. What a fun thing to watch how in one week we went from brown to green. Kind of funny to think that in such a short time we're going from shoveling snow to mowing. This weekend the temps were in the 70s so we were able to dig up 5 thorn bushes in front of the house. I guess the previous owners really wanted their house protected from any would be burglars so there were a total of 8 thorn bushes planted in the front. We left the ones closest to the windows in the ground, but the ones we dug up were really hazardous because if anybody walked up to the front door, those bushes were ready to snag a person's clothes let alone their skin. Roger chopped down the bushes with some kind of electric saw after we figured out it was dangerous to try to clip the branches. Some roots were deep and thick, but we hacked at them with an ax, and I am so glad we got them out. The following pics show how big the thorns were, and hopefully you can see how yellow the roots are. I'm not sure yet if I want to plant different bushes or flowers in place of the bushes we dug up.

Last Wednesday we had the most beautiful full moon. When we got home from church on Wednesday night I went to take a pic of it from our back door. It was actually yellow, but my camera didn't pick that up. But, it was big and beautiful!

Pretty cool pic of the moon between the tree branches.

 This morning we have been watching a red cardinal hopping around the backyard looking for food. Also, our resident squirrels who I don't ever think hibernated this winter seem to have become more brown. I LOVE Spring!!