Ah, Springtime in Fredericksburg. What? Huh? It's, uh, February?

I grew up in southwest Oklahoma.  Hot in summer, can get really cold in winter, but not unusual to see midwinter temperatures in the forties or fifties.  Rare snow, maybe once or twice a season.  Humid, really humid, which you wouldn't really expect except that there's a mountain range there where I'm from that traps moisture and makes my hometown extremely soupy in high summer.  Mountains?  In Oklahoma?  Surely you jest.  No, not at all.  Google "Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge".  Search some videos on youtube.  It's there.  The Wichitas are part of the Rocky Mountain chain, albeit an older, more worn-down part.  More like glorified hills, but, hey, the guvmint calls 'em mountains, so mountains they are.  I miss those mountains, miss the bison and wild longhorn cattle and elk.  I even miss the rattlesnakes - well, okay, maybe not them.  It's not like I suffer from a lack of snakes out here in Virginia.  Every so often a garter snake slithers out of the ditch in my front yard, and after all I'm only an hour or so from D.C.  Oh, cheap shot!  Sorry, couldn't resist.

So, what I'm getting at, is that the weather this "winter" has been much more typical of what I grew up with than what I'm used to experiencing here.  I mean, c'mon, not one snow day so far?  The only day we lost so far this year is an earthquake-makeup day, and you (hopefully) can't reckon on having too many of those.  My lawn is greening and all of us are stuffy and sneezing.  I haven't even gotten over my winter cold and now my spring allergies are starting to surface.  The snow we had over the weekend was just a tease.   It was pretty, big, fluffy wet flakes, an the kids enjoyed running around in it and then leaving muddy wet puddles inside the front door.  But it didn't block the road or necessitate a panicked run to Giant for bread, milk, and toilet paper.  And now we're supposed to get up to the sixties today?  In February?

I suppose the people over in Europe would be most happy to change places with us.  The weather over there has been unremitting in its harshness.  And all the way over in northern Japan they are measuring the snowfall in feet rather than inches.  Okay, I'm happy I don't have that, but I do miss having a real winter.  Don't cuss me out.  I know a lot of people from here are not "from" here and many come from warmer climates.  Just let me have one good snowstorm that I can enjoy for a couple of days and then I'll be happy to let springtime come on full force.  I do look forward to the mint growing again in the ditch, and being able to figure out what seeds I'm going to pick out for my garden this year.  But I'm not ready yet.  My kids have not outgrown their winter clothes.  I still have a lot of beans in the cupboard for hearty winter soups.  I'm definitely not ready for spring cleaning.  I just want to hibernate for a little while longer.