‘Spring Kinda’ has sprung in Anchorage.

The good news is that it is warm-ish.  We have been in the 50s for most of the last few days, and the sun has been out for nearly all of that time.  In comparison to Summer, our average high temperature is in the 60s, so we are practically there.  Most of the snow has melted, yet piles still exist where there’s shade or just a lot of it.  Birds are returning, which is a big deal because southern birds have a hell of a long way to get here, so now that they are showing up that means they are set for the long haul.  Most of the rivers and streams are opened up, though ice still floats here and there.  All the signs are there for us to be through the “break-up” season and out of the winter.  Best of all, for a place that gets rain all the time when it’s warm, we haven’t had any for weeks.  We have every reason to enjoy this time of the year.

So, when I brought up the weather with others the conversation went to:

A) There’s still Snow on the Ground!  Okay, maybe not like winter, but it’s hard to work on your lawn when a quarter of it is under snow pack.  Plus it still freezes over night, so you can’t really plant anything outside yet.  If you go for a hike, you could find yourself in snow so deep that its like January – or the ground could be all dead rocks and vegetation.

B) It’s so dusty and dry.  We haven’t had rain in weeks, I said.  So none of the regular vegitation is coming up, and any wind picks up every bit of dirt you can breath.  Plus the city uses grit and dirt on the winter roads, all of which is now free to be blown around, or is being blown around by people trying to clean it up.  I mean, there is loads of that stuff.  At the parking lot at work, I drew a smiley face 10 feet wide in the inch deep grit still in the parking lot.

C) Bug Season is Starting.  Last May & June we got hit by the worse bug season this area has ever seen.  You couldn’t go outside without being swarmed by hundreds of mosquitoes and flies. It could be as bad this year, and with each person swatting at something from their arm, the fear of the bugs grows.

Most of all people are NOT saying what we are all thinking:

D) There’s still one more snow left.  Last year we had snow fall on May 10th.  It’s only April 23rd.  We are bound to get something still before summer really arrives. That uber depressing day will come and it looms over us like a dark cloud.

So we are in that Great In-between, when the summer fun  taunts us to go give it a try in bad conditions, yet we have enough to be pessimistic about to wonder if its worth it.  Soon though, very soon, summer will be here.  Already the sun is up past 10PM, and I am running out of days when I will see nighttime on a regular basis.  It’s coming, we just got to get through this part of the year.

BEAR FEED Note:  I created a new category in the blog, and will be back updating previous posts in the coming weeks with that new category.  It’s covering the posts I seem to write every couple of weeks saying “this is the worst time of the year”.  So look for that.