First Signs of Spring

Crocus (I did not take this picture,
but it's just the kind of picture I hope to take with a new digital SLR camera.)

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At 07:20 this morning, the temperature outside our house was 19 degrees below zero Celsius. (That's -2 F. Sounds better, er worse, in metric). It was brass-monkey-ball freezing, it was. I can't wait for spring, for milder weather, for a chance to get some garden growing in our back yard, for the first brave blossoms of crocuses, tulips and daffodils.

We do not have any such pastel-hued harbingers of spring, but we do have other signs that things are warming up:


Icky, brown-grey snow.

But wait. What's that dash of blue up in the corner?


 There seem to be quite a few of them ...

Construction flags, marking water and gas lines.

And more ominous signs further down the street.

Spray-painted markings on the road, and mounded dirt showing where they've already started digging.

Yes, road-and-sewer-repair season is upon us, and major construction is scheduled for our street, right in front of our house. We received a letter from the city last week warning that our lives would be disrupted. The work will last all summer, it seems, and will block the only two ways we can get in or out of our neighbourhood.

So that's the first sign of spring in our neck of the woods. I'm willing to bet our friends and family in Georgia, Colorado and British Columbia have some prettier things to gloat enthuse about.

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Since we're on the topic of flowers, I'll just drop a hint about my nieces' fundraising effort: Diane and Laura, the "Simpson's Striders," have a Flower Power campaign. 50% of the sales go toward the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Check it out.