Perpetual Ruminations

Monday

First things first, I need to get in here and make an entry, then I want to send out an email and try and keep myself caught up. With limited time, it seems my email is always full, but luckily most of what I get is,[NOTICE] New Notebook Reply. Of course there are the communications from the Reviewers Group and  Writing.Com, but these are only a few and usually very short.

Once again, I'm feeling exhausted. It's been a long time since I had a day off, I just put in another ten hour day, and the weather just zapped the little bit of reserve energy I had left right out of me. We started out at fifty-six degrees this morning, with northerly winds at twenty miles per hour. By three this afternoon, it was thirty-six degrees, thirty mile per hour winds, gusting as high as fifty.

I'm  really ready for spring, and not just because it's been such a long winter. It has been a long winter, even though we didn't get much snow. The weather patterns have just repeated over and over since last November, a couple of pretty nice days, then the cold and wind for a week or better. Since winter started early, I think everyone was hoping for an early spring, but it just hasn't arrived. We get a couple of pretty nice days, then right back into the freezing temperatures and strong winds.

On top of the unpleasant weather, it's just been a few years since we had a spring. That may sound impossible, but we really haven't had a spring in three or four years. Winter weather hangs on into May or June, then we jump right into the heat of summer. This year is looking like it will be the same, just dryer. We didn't get much for snow, just cold and windy, so it's dry.

I mean, very dry. Wetlands and sloughs are drying up rapidly, we are under burning bans, and the fields are powder dry. We may have gotten as much as a half inch of rain over the last two months, maybe three, but the high winds and low humidity sucks it back out of the ground as soon as it stops raining. Kind of a complete reversal of the weather.

Of course, South Dakota tends to be a pretty dry stated, but over the last twenty to twenty-five years, it's been very wet and humid. My brother and I have fished in lakes that used to be fields and pastureland. It's not uncommon to boat past a stop sign barely protruding from the water, or see the tops of trees midway across the lake. Now, it looks like the land may soon be open to till again, long lost roads are surfacing, and things are returning to their past state.

I digress, though. It's interesting to see the weather patterns, but it's spring I miss. Spring is my favorite season, and I wait anxiously for it from summers end. Sure, autumn is nice, the colors and the cooler nights, but spring is a renewing of life, it's invigorating and motivating. I just love the warm days, the cool nights, blossoms and flowers everywhere. the birds singing as they build their nests and prepare for raising their young is the sweetest sound of all, as the warm sun caresses my skin and chases the early morning chill from the air.