Forward, March!

 
I wrote this some years ago. But after this winter, when our yard has looked like this:
                                        

 

I'm feeling like I did the day I wrote it,

 and I thought I share it.

(I confess that it's a bit over-dramatic.)

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Of course I know that the snow will melt, eventually, and probably soon, without any help from me. But I am hungry for spring, and unwilling to remain a passive bystander to the natural process. I am impatient for the moment when I can look out over my snow-free yard and say, “This is spring.”

So I am partnering with the sun, helping it to melt the last stubborn lumps of white by spreading the snow in a thin layer. A note of irony greets me at the edge of the lawn: My husband labored many hours, moving this very snow from the driveway into piles in the yard, and now I am putting it back where he found it, hoping that my warm-hearted confederate in this business will banish it from the concrete within hours.

I wonder if the neighbors are thinking I am foolish. They cannot be expected to understand that this is no vain exercise, but rather a pivotal battle in the annually recurring conflict between winter and me. As I work, my task takes on heroic, almost epic proportions. I am a warrior, a nearly vanquished soldier returned for one last duel. Months ago I retired to my stronghold, conceding my enemy’s superiority, occasionally emerging, dressed in battle clothes and armed with a shovel, to stage a weak resistance. But mostly I have waited, confident that in time, my opponent would weaken. And then, I knew, the reserves would come.

So now, with a mighty battle cry in my heart, I have entered the fray in earnest. I work barefoot, daring the small frozen chunks that jump up as I comb them with the rake to strike my feet, and they do. Let them come. They fight valiantly at the end of their life, but they cannot hurt me now.


I hear water dripping off the roof; the sound of approaching victory. I glimpse a spot of red on the end of my rake and stoop to investigate. I have scraped up a ladybug, and it is now dead. The ladybug was not my enemy, and though I am saddened by this unexpected civilian casualty, my work continues. How many ladybugs has the snow itself killed, I wonder?

Many of my friends have learned to accept the enemy; some even embrace it, buying snowmobiles and ski passes. But I stand firm. I pretend not to know that my opponent is only retreating for a season, to gather strength in its own barracks before it returns full-force. I will not acknowledge this. I will not show weakness. I will put a plant on the porch, I will pack a picnic lunch, I will hang the hammock in the backyard.

May the 4th

Every year on the fifth of May, we enjoy eating great Mexican food as we commemorate the Mexican Independence Day with our neighbors to the south.

But at our house, the day before Cinco de Mayo has some significance, too:

Elisabeth battles Superman!

Me with some of my friends at the cancer treatment center on Halloween

MAY THE FOURTH

BE WITH YOU

Spring Break Ice Cream

My five youngest kids have had spring break this week, and my husband has taken most of the week off. We haven’t done anything extraordinary, but it’s been nice to have a little more relaxed time together.

Yesterday, we drove a couple of  hours south to visit our two oldest children, Sam and Hannah, who are students at Brigham Young University. It was a bright spring day and we enjoyed the visit.

At the Provo City Library

We brought the ingredients to make dinner in Hannah’s apartment and topped it off with homemade ice cream, which was beautiful and very yummy. Here’s how I made it (I did this the night before):

I stemmed about a pound of strawberries and cut them in half. It filled a two cup measure plus a little.

I put the strawberries in the food processor and poured ½ cup sugar over them. I let them sit like that while I heated 1 cup milk, ½ cup sugar, and ¼ teaspoon of salt in a pan on the stove.

I separated two eggs and put the whites in a small container in the refrigerator for some other use.* I put the yolks in a small bowl and stirred them a little, then added a bit of the hot milk mixture into the egg yolks and stirred again, then put in a little more of the milk mixture, stirred more, added more, stirred it up, and then put it all in the pan. (This ‘tempering the eggs’ step is important – if you put the egg yolks directly into the hot milk, it will cook the eggs and you will have “Scrambled Egg Ice Cream" for dessert.)

I cooked and stirred the milk and egg mixture until it became quite thick, and then let it cool. While it was cooling I pureed the strawberries that were sitting in the food processor until they were quite smooth, and then I poured in a cup of cream and pureed some more. (We like our strawberry ice cream smooth; if you like chunks of frozen strawberries you can do less pureeing.)


I started to put the pureed mixture in the pan, but then I thought, “You know what would be good in this? Some cream cheese. I wonder if we have any.”  So I searched the  refrigerator and found some and put a little (maybe 2-3 ounces) in the food processor with what was left in there, and then poured it all, plus another cup of cream and a teaspoon of vanilla, into the poor overworked pan. Almost done! I stirred it up and poured it into jars to take to Provo. After dinner, we put it in the ice cream maker, and ended up with about a quart and a half of really good stuff.

The break will be over on Monday, and we'll go back to the routine of normal life. Is it possible that the lovely day we had will change our lives? Perhaps we'll be a little happier than before. Perhaps we'll weigh a bit more than we did. And I suppose my cholesterol count will be a little higher.

Oh! I do love spring . . .



*Based on previous experience, I expect to forget they are there, and they will sit until they rot and I will throw them away.  

Can It Really Be?

Is it possible that winter is finally ending?

I don't want to get my hopes up, because I've lived in this cold northern valley long enough to know that as soon as I put the coats and boots and sweaters and heavy blankets away and reach for the short-sleeved t-shirts, the weather fairies will turn on me and dump more snow in my yard. But still, it has to end sometime. Right? Right?

I do love the beauties of spring. Not everyone at my house shares my opinion, though:

Approaching Spring

She said, "Soon there'll be no snow,

The icy winds will cease to blow.

And mountain streams resume their flow

To fill our ditches here below.

Then flowers will begin to grow,

And trees their scented blossoms show,

As the bright sun warms us with its glow.

And oh, the places I will go,

And oh, what happiness I'll know!

He said, "Snow will soon be gone,

And then, I'll have to mow the lawn."