My Favorite Kind of Day!

I don't know how it is that I am such a gloomy-weather-loving type of person, but I adore days like the one we had today: overcast and not hot. Even the wind did not bother me, because it was borderline cool. If I didn't move too quickly.

Come to think of it, I adore cold and overcast days too. It's not so much that I hate the sun, by any means; but sun, to me, calls for sunscreen and a hat and shade and wrinkles anyway, not to mention annual visits to the dermatologist thanks to my lifeguarding years some 30+ years ago. I think mentally I feel freer to get out & about all day long if it is cloudy outdoors. If it's sunny, I am always conscious of the sun.

Oh, and talk about green! And I don't mean yesterday's St. Paddy's Day. The fields and pastures around here are emeralds. Our yard has blossomed into pinks and bright yellows and deep reds, set against the really nice green lawn - all in a matter of days, it seems, from the brown of winter.

This weekend saw me planting. I planted four types of sunflowers, ranging in height from 12' to 4', and in color from lemon yellow to deep chianti. The sunflowers all went into my cutting garden. As I write, my cutting garden is sporting a row of bloomin' daffodils. We are awaiting the arrival of the tulips, and then the irises. The gladiolas I put in last week should be up soon, to bloom later in the summer.

Today I planted zinnias and tithonia. The banana trees are out of the house and in the grotto. And I acquired, funnily enough, six bromeliads from the local garden store. These bromeliads still had their Christmas decorations on their pots, and their original price of $16.00. I bought the lot for $2.00 each, and this summer will be a trial and error of growing bromeliads in questionable Kansas summer.

In addition to my cutting garden, we have tulips and daffodils coming up along our walk out front. Yet to bloom, but they show the curvy path from our drive to our front door. (And they show me yet another "To-Do' on my 2012 List: Re-brick the curvy path to our front door.)

I have gotten the grotto pond cleaned and running, and soon I will move the big goldfish from the aquarium in our living room to their summer digs; I hope we get another frog this summer!

And late this afternoon I shaved our Bouvier, Biserka. This is the earliest I have ever shaved any of our Bouviers, and yet, the "latest in the season". That is to say, I have never shaved our dogs in March, but March has never been so warm. Biserka was a winter-wooly creature who was really irritated by the unseasonably warm weather we have been having, and yet, I was afraid to shave her for fear that we could still have an ice storm. Well! Today, the wool came off and she seemed positively thrilled to be getting groomed.

And so the springtime progresses much like it has the past few years, with a few changes and additions. And this week's forecast is for thunderstorms, five days in a row. I suppose that means tomorrow is barn-cleaning day, in order to shelter a couple of cars, should it hail.

Ah, Spring!