March: Going Out With A Bang

Wind and rain have stripped the blooms of hybrid magnolia 'Susan' strewing the petals through the wet grass.

So quickly we have moved from the white froth of Bradford pear trees in bloom to emerging leaves in tender spring green.

Where great swaths of wild daffodils gave an impression of golden light even on a cloudy day, now there are only the narrow blade-like leaves merging with roadside grass.

 In the space of a few days the strange flowering of the redbuds has added  color to the spring landscape.

Facebook memories inform me that the lashing rain and wind of the past several days, even the booming thunder and jagged lightning that ushered in the 31st of March are a typical pattern of our Kentucky springtime.

Sunday, March 30th: weather overcast and humid at 66 F. Brief sharp bursts of rain, sun wavering through strange greenly dark clouds, disappearing again as rain pattered down. Friends dropped by for an hour of stimulating conversation. As they prepared to leave, taking with them the heavy porch chairs that J. salvaged and refurbished, son HLW arrived with his dogs. 

It was raining again, the wind picking up. 

I made tea and we sprawled in the living room chairs, dogs flopped at our feet, Thimble-kitten showing off, wanting attention.

Later I worked at a history project shared by my sister in Vermont.

Weather warnings scrolled along the bottom of my PC screen; J. checked the doplar maps, declared that most of the forecast storm would pass to the west of us.

We settled the house for the night about 10:30, Thimble-kitten banished to the sunroom [otherwise she rackets about, torments the other cats, rattles in the kitchen, pushes things from flat surfaces to the floor.]

Having declared the weather to be non-threatening, J. turned off his bedside light. I settled myself for my nightly routine of reading, bolstered with pillows, until the book drops from my hands signaling [hopefully] a quick plunge into slumber.

An hour into reading, Rosie-cat curled contentedly on the bed, and suddenly a draft from the open window, a faint stirring of distant thunder, followed by tongues of lightning flickering across the night sky. Within moments a crash of thunder overhead shook the house.

Rosie-cat bolted from the foot of the bed; I padded around to lower the window, leaving a gap of an inch for fresh air.  I pulled down the blind to block the intrusive shafts of lightning.

No point now in laying aside the book, trying to fall asleep though the uproar!

For two hours the storm hovered, circling, retreating for a moment of quiet, then hurling down wind-lashed rain. 

Concentration on the book was failing; I prayed for family and friends in the path of the turbulence, thinking of falling branches, shingles torn from roofs, flooded basements. 

By 2 a.m. the storm had blown itself out, thunder rumbled into the distance leaving only a gentle patter of rain. 

This morning under a quiet grey sky the east meadow spread a carpet of green; the violas and pansies set into their pots by the front steps on Thursday seem to have doubled in height.

It is cooler and Jim built a fire, brought in more wood. 

He invited me to town for a belated birthday dinner; driving there and back we marveled, as we do every year, on how quickly the changes come about: the daffodils over for another year, fields and verges awash in the purple haze of dead nettle and henbit; 

We share our astonishment at becoming elderly--as the summers and winters have rolled past, so have the seasons of our shared lives.

We have this spring with its patterns of sun, shadow, wind and rain, falling petals and fresh new green.