Thursday, April 10, 2008

Forsooth! Forsythia!!

It's the time of the year here in Denver when our baby forsythia, now beginning to be big enough to put on a pretty good show in the spring, is checking her makeup and preparing for her cue to enter, stage right.

This shot, taken today, shows one itty-bitty blossom against the gray sky.

Of course, it is, and has been, spring for several weeks now, at least technically. Then, again, I'm at 5300 feet above sea level here at my house. This means that spring, even in mid-April, can cause the forsythia to get some very cold feet.

Yes, we had one of those semi-major snow storms today that bluster their way across the Denver area this time of year, threatening to bury us until reality strikes: it's not cold enough for the snow to pile up seriously anywhere but on the grass, cars, and any tree silly enough to have leafed out already (almost none have).

Thanks for the moisture, Mother Nature!

UPDATE: less than 24 hours after I shot the photo which illustrated the snow we had accumulated, all signs of it had disappeared. It is supposed to be 70 degrees tomorrow (that will be three days since the original post). Denver is at an elevation which allows for more snow than our latitude might indicate should be expected, but the flip side is, the sun is encumbered by more than a mile less atmosphere than folks have at the ocean beaches. So, we get more snow, and when the sun comes out, it melts faster than at lower elevation. And, sunburn? Yeah...we can do sunburn in Denver. Not to mention the raccoon eyes of weekend skiers we see in the office every Monday all winter long!

3 comments:

Julie said...

What an awesome place to live - winter comes around just long enough to give people a really pretty background and some snow to play in, and then 70 degrees and sunshine. Ahhhh.

dharmamama said...

You know, years ago, I was going through a bad patch. I'd lived through times of depression, and really felt like I was falling into that pit again. At that point, there was something still comfortable about depression - I knew what to expect, maybe. But where my son went to school, there was a forsythia, jauntily in bloom, every time I'd drop him off. It made me smile every morning. I told a friend, "I was trying to be depressed, and this damn flower wouldn't let me!" I love them, their... legginess and joy.

Oh, and the thought of dropping my son off makes me sad, so let me say, that was before we started unschooling! There, I feel better.

Sphincter said...

Hooray forsythia--harbinger of the goodness! I've been so jazzed every time I see little springs of green making their way through the mud.