SPRING IS COMING?!?!?!?!?!?!

We are on Spring Break from school this week, and the snow is melting, and the weather has become quite unstable - yesterday we had highs in the fifties with snow flurries on and off. It must be getting close to spring.

The other sure way to know it is spring is because there is so much dirt everywhere.

For instance, there is fresh potting soil in the pots as we allow those flowers and veggies to get a start indoors - otherwise they will never ever produce any fruit this summer because there won't be sufficient time before it starts to freeze again at the end of August or early September. Here are Jansse's spring plantings:
He really did them all on his own. They are all flowers for his part of the garden. By the way, when he talks about his part of the flower garden it gets bigger every time, and I'm a bit fearful that I won't have anything left by the time the snow is gone and he goes out to claim what he believes is his. Probably he'll give it all back to me when he realizes how much weeding has to be done!

As you can see from this photo, the snow is melting around the house.

I was out in the front field observing the melting snow and the ground it revealed as I looked for my step-aerobics shoe that is now missing. I believe that in fact the culprit for it's missing status is that beautiful six month old puppy in the foreground of the photo. He likes shoes, but he doesn't seem satisfied with their useful state, so he chews them into lots of tiny pieces. Never did find my shoe - I suppose it is in the uncut field grass behind the house on the way to the barn. I may never find it there! I did go out and buy a new pair today, as I think my body needs to be exercising, and the fewer excuses I give for not doing it the better.

And here is the true sign that it is spring time: dirt all over the house as mud gets tracked in on shoes.

Yes, there is a reason why spring in Montana is known to the locals as "Mud Season." As the snow melts you know what happens to the dirt. It then migrates into the house on dog paws and people shoes. We try to take our shoes off before coming into the house, but then they are in the garage and you now know who takes them from there to some mysterious place in the giant yard we have. And, realistically we don't always take them off to come into the house - you know how it goes when you are just running in to grab that thing you forgot to load in the car already and untying and re-tying seems like a lot of time and effort when you are in a hurry to get going. I sometimes wish for a paved driveway, but that might alter the rural feeling of our property.

So, as the photo, shows I sweep and sweep and sweep. Probably a minimum of two or three times a day, plus the daily requirement of mopping at least the kitchen floor sometimes more than once. It is one of the reasons I ripped all the carpet out of the first floor of our house and much of the second floor - can you imagine if all that dirt was just sifting down through the carpet - Yuck! I'd rather see it and get it swept up than have it trapped under an ever graying carpet. I'm not generally stuck on cleanliness, as many who know me can attest, but this is one of those things that just gets me.

Anyway, the sweeping and mopping and looking for shoes are my current excuses for not getting anything else done. So, what's your excuse?