“Mary, Mary quite contrary, How does your garden grow?”
It doesn’t. It simply doesn’t grow. Not even the lettuce came up yet. I think it’s just too cold.
Spring up here is the most frustrating season of the year. When we moved up two years ago I thought winters would be the hardest. But they aren’t. Winter is beautiful with lots of snow, and besides, everyone expects it to be cold.
But spring? Up here spring is three months of March weather. A warm day here and there, but just when you think summer is actually coming, you get another two weeks of rain and 45 degrees.
Honestly I think one of the hardest things about spring is hearing from family. They are eating fresh strawberries and their gardens are leafy and green already. The children are wading in creeks and there are flowers everywhere.
Andy says we just need to adjust our expectations because this is a totally different state and climate from the east, and I know he’s right. It’s just hard to keep from comparing it to the springtime we knew growing up.
Springtime in Alaska means gearing up for fishing season and getting the boat running well and all the nets and fishing poles out of storage.
It means for a few months we can actually see the ground (after snow and before tall grass grows) so we spend a lot of time picking up things the dogs strewed around over the winter as well as things we forgot we had. (“Oh look, there’s that old bathtub we kept from the old house. What did we keep it FOR exactly?”)
Spring in Alaska means all the moose have their babies. Moose calves are super cute, but don’t get too close! The yearling moose also get kicked off mama so we have to watch out while driving. Yearlings don’t have much smarts and are apt to run across the road right in front of a car.
This spring we got some free bear meat from an outfitter in Homer. They do guided bear hunts and are required to keep the meat in the spring before the bears eat Salmon. We got two bear quarters and I have a bear roast in the the crockpot right now for supper.
Spring always brings the return of the mosquitos, but I actually like the ones up here. They are big and slow, easy to catch out of the air. Not like those little whiners we had back in Ohio. They would buzz around annoyingly but you could never catch them!
Spring up here sure has its ups and downs but we’re hanging in there trying not to be too anxious for summer.