The Decompression of a Boomer

Southeast Idaho has a fifth season, called “Sprinter” – between winter and spring, which is basically … uh, winter, interspersed with a few hopeful signs of spring. Sprinter starts about when you think spring is supposed to – say, March 21, and it hangs on, and on …

This sprinter was made a little more spectacular by the extraordinary “Blood Moon” lunar eclipse that occurred on the crystal clear night of April 15. I snapped a photo of the moon over our back deck somewhere around 1 AM, at the beginning of the eclipse.

Okay, so you can’t take clear photographs of eclipses using your smart phone. Dang-it! But it was fun to watch the moon disappear … uh, well, then hop into bed, because it was very late.

In early April we resumed our after-dinner walks. The light was coming back! – what a marvelous thing to greet each new day knowing daylight will last a few minutes longer today than yesterday, and each new day will grow longer for weeks to come.

The trees stand hopeful and strong against the evening sky

Even in dormancy.

The face of an old ravaged man (winter?) is peering

through these tree tops, as if to issue a warning: winter lurks!

Ah, but look! A robin. They’re coming back!

This robin was perched on our honey locust tree in our back yard, albeit, looking as if he had second thoughts about his timing of migrating back.

Easter Sunday brings warmth, and blossoms!

A flowering crab, maybe? These are the first trees to bloom.

Leaves unfolding on deciduous tree limbs drape the spruce trees in the background

with Christmasy garlands.

Now, on every block spindly trees and gangly bushes are bursting open –

even the tiniest branches are coated with blossoms.

Signs of spring abound!

Tulips (of course!)

Daffodils and iris

Dandelions! Oh sweet first appearance, oh harking of spring!

Oh velvety perkiness and yellow brilliance!

Oh vast nectar for bees!

Oh robust proliferation across lawns and green meadows!

Uh, wait a minute. That’s right. Dandelion blooms curl over, then morph and pop back up as white fluffy-heads stuffed with countless downy-tethered seeds that parachute off and repopulate impeccably manicured lawns, rendering fruitless all good citizens’ previous efforts to eradicate the noxious weed.

Which is not so great, when this yard belongs to you, or, as in this case, one of your neighbors. What’s spring without at least one yard in every neighborhood smothered in dandelions.

May trees line streets and driveways throughout the town. Right on the button, the first week of May, they bloomed. We have a gigantic ancient May tree right in our front yard

I took a close-up of the tree through our upstairs bedroom window

May trees are stunning, even on a cloudy day.

Not to overlook another sure sign of spring – this one right in the comfort of your living room, let the winter weather rage! Sitting on your couch in front of the TV – you can enjoy the heightened excitement surrounding network series and shows as they build and climax to their season finales, whether you’ve actually been following them or not. David was cruising the channels and we happened onto ‘American Idol’ where they were down to the top four contestants and whittling it to three. But this night they had something really special in store for the viewer, something new and different, never before offered on the show. This week, each of the four remaining contestants would pose beside a cardboard shadow head or something (where YOU put YOUR head) so the viewer could snap a ‘selfie’ with them.

Groovy! I tried to do it, but couldn’t manage it – fiddled with my phone, fumbled around, which, of course, totally motivated David to rise to the occasion. He paused the screen with the first contestant, and proceeded to get himself into position. I snapped a photo of David setting himself up for his ‘selfie.”

David successfully took the ‘selfie,’ possibly his first-ever. Here it is:

(Don’t ask me who the contestant is. We both have no idea. This is the first episode of American Idol we have paid any attention to this whole season.)

Groovy, eh? David is such a radical dude, man. We are so hip!

Yesterday Megan piped up from the living room, “What’s it doing out there?” (the quintessential question of the day in Idaho). To which, of course, I flew out of the kitchen, raced to the dining room window, flew up the sash, just sure it was snowing. Which, it kinda was. Enough so to where you had to do a double take. I stepped out on the front porch and took this photo:

It is snowing! Blossoms!

A high wind had kicked up. Basically stripped the May trees of their blossoms.

Oh well, spring in Idaho. There. I said it! “Spring!”

The last clear signs of spring reside on our back deck – stacks of bags of ‘soil enhancers’ for the gardens. I bought them yesterday.

Took a close-up of a corner of one of our gardens.

So great to see the perennials back! Uh, well, those are tulips. Wind whipped.

Hey, wait a minute. That’s not all flowers. There’s a couple of imposters.

Dandelions!

Spring has sprung. Summer is just around the corner. Well, maybe not the next corner. I’ll surely recognize summer when it gets here. A sure sign of summer will be when David shaves that massive winter growth of hair off his face.

Tags: Selfies with the top four on American Idol, Spring in Idaho

This entry was posted on May 18, 2014 at 12:49 am and is filed under Gardening, Idaho, Spring. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.