Spring is a shameless flirt when it kisses the Prairies. Just when we, the yearning suitors, see a glimpse of an end to this long winter, as we would a slip of white lace beneath a short skirt, spring turns on her heel and flounces away.
Will we even recognize coy spring when she commits to a longer relationship? It might be helpful to review the signs.
1. Daffodils bloom – at the mall and in the grocery stores, as volunteers solicit help in the fight against cancer. Who can resist the cheer of those blossoms: A golden cup with a golden frill/And golden wings/Makes a daffodil.
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2. Weather changes by the hour and sometimes by the minute.
3. Due to the above, there is no point in washing the pickup truck until June.
4. Baby calves frolic, infectious in their exultation with sunlight and space.
5. The kids want to wear shorts to school.
6. The first gopher is seen in the field. The first dead gopher is spotted on the highway.
7. The birds that have been peeping softly outside the window over the last two months chirp with renewed vigour and additional twittering friends.
8. You run out of excuses to delay repairs to the seeder.
9. It takes days to read through one fat issue of The Western Producer.
10. The spring flower and garden seed order arrives.
11. Frozen, ankle-twisting cow flops give way to slippery, muck-laden corral pens.
12. You look forward to shedding those winter hibernation pounds, now that you can exercise outdoors without threat of hypothermia.
13. You can still read the writing in the calving book outside at 8 p.m.
14. The hockey playoffs begin. Only three months until the Stanley Cup!
15. You are ready to embrace global warming no matter how it occurs.
16. The kids are finally finished the basketball schedule; no need to drive every weekend to a tournament at some town within a 300-mile radius.
17. The flower seeds you planted back in February, in defiance of winter, have sprouted in pots on the windowsill and are now flirting with spindly status.
18. Ducks swim in ditches. You enjoy seeing their bottoms up, as they dive for goodies.
19. The detritus in the yard – the dead grass and leaves, the branches, the animal carcasses the dog has dragged home – begins to demand cleanup.
20. Beneath the snow, on slopes where the sun shines warmest, you know the crocuses are plotting their beautiful emergence.
