Tulips in February

I hate this weather. It should not be in the 70ºs in late February in this part of the country. I don’t mind a mild day in the winter sometimes to whet your appetite for spring. But it’s been far too mild this winter and that bothers me.

 

We haven’t even had any snow yet, since our area somehow has evaded all the blizzards across the country. I don’t mind the snow and I miss it. The only good thing about a lack of it is I haven’t had to share the supermarket or the road with people who have a Total Systems Collapse when they hear the word “snow” on Action News and act like they just emigrated from Ecuador and their minds can’t process the white stuff. True, we do get occasional cold days and it may snow with a vengeance in March.

 

This is different than just a few warm days, though. My tulips are already tentatively poking up through the ground. It’s good to know the squirrels didn’t get to the bulbs but I don’t want them to start blooming early and then die when we get a cold snap. Crocuses have been up for some time and I’m seeing daffodils start to bloom. Trees are budding. None of this should be happening at the end of February. Meanwhile, there’s a blizzard warning for Los Angeles County.

 

I like the weather to be what it’s supposed to be with only an occasional aberration—unusually cool days in late spring also annoy me. There is a season for everything: forsythia, daffodils, tulips, roses, vincas, echinacea, sedum, chrysanthemums. Each blooms in turn. So I like the weather to proceed like clockwork as it should, but this is more than just me being anal. It’s that constant white noise that tells you something is wrong with the world.

 

It can be nice to leave the snowblower idle and save on your heating bills, for a season. But this is more than that. We will pay a very high price later for these fleeting comforts now.