Is Winter over?

Wow! Amazing how much can happen in one week. We just came home from a one week holiday in Santa Maria, Cuba. We left Sunday, March 6. The day before we left, March 5, I had to blow the snow from my driveway with the snow blower. We had two feet of snow in some places in our backyard. And it was cold. When we landed in Winnipeg yesterday, there was fog everywhere and driving home was a nightmare. I could barely see the road in front of the car.

Arriving at home there were more surprises. The driveway was empty of snow; most of the snow in the yard had melted and the ditches were full of water. Also, there were huge areas of our backyard underwater.

When I checked this morning, I saw catkins on the pussywillows. They are still small, but another week or so with temperatures like today (plus 14 Celsius) they will be big enough to be picked and we’ll have fresh ones for Easter.

Today I saw quite a few flocks of Canada Geese flying and in the fields.  The first ones I’ve seen this year. What happened to Winter? We were only gone for one week.

One negative side of this warm weather is that the streets are dirty. We washed our car before we went on holiday and now it is covered with a white/gray film. I would have liked to leave it in the garage, but our fridge was empty and we had to go shopping for food.

Of course, this weather is not going to last. I’ve lived in Manitoba long enough to know this. I remember when we had a huge snowstorm in April, long after the last bit of snow had melted. In fact, I had removed my winter tires already. Anything can happen in the next month or so. March came in as a whimpering lion and we might get a snowstorm at the end of the month. The all-knowing weather people predicted colder temperature for this Wednesday and up to 5 cm of snow.

We will not relax and I will keep my snow blower ready.