aftermath

Well, it started melting pretty quickly but the damage was done. Many cherry trees around here lost large limbs and branches. Some just snapped entirely under the weight of all that wet snow. So sad. Apparently Beban Park lost some trees, too, but I haven't been to that side of town yet. I'll swing by later on my way home from the grocery store to look. Yesterday, we got down to the river for a walk and it seemed devastated. Trees and limbs down, shrubs and bushes and undergrowth lay flat on the ground. Two days earlier while walking there, we had found broken blue eggshells from newly hatched robins on the ground. In a couple of those spots, I don't even see the trees they might have come from anymore...nor do I see how the mamas could have kept 9 inches of snowfall from their tiny featherless babies with no leaves to help shield them yet sprouted....damn climate change. We did see a number of hummingbirds out and about yesterday, so hopefully there are enough blooms left on the trees and bushes to keep them fed for a while.

Two days earlier, in the warm sun, we saw multitudes of the little garter snakes I love so much sunning themselves in the warmest spots. Yesterday, we saw little dead snakes everywhere, frozen or drowned in the meltoff. I know you all don't love my little green garters like I do, but it really was quite heartbreaking for me. They always make my heart beat so fast and fierce. My Grandma used to catch them with me when I was a kid in her garden. We'd feel their smooth skin, talk gently, and lay them back down in the warm-turned earth and watch them slide away.

They are a little bit like Love to me, my little green garters. Love and warm-turned soil, dusty raspberries fresh from the vine, blue-veined, dirt-stained fingers showing me which are weeds to pull and which are the sweet carrot greens, the smell of roses....

Michael spent a fair amount of time gently lifting snow from my flower garden, hoping to save my blooms. He's so good, right? The tulips, daffies, hyacinths and bluebonnets faired pretty well....the leapard's bane, one of our favorites, may be toast.

Well, coffee is done now. I suppose I should get on down the road and get my groceries...

talk to y'all later, eh?