Henrietta Hay's Column

As I write the sun is shining, the temperature is mild, various green things in the ground are stirring a little, and various people outdoors are stirring a lot. By the time it appears in print, however, there may be six inches of snow on the ground. That is called springtime in the Rockies.

A friend who has recently moved here inquired about our weather. I told her that spring in Grand Junction is a short interval between winter and summer, usually about 48 hours. Every time she can go outdoors without a parka she calls me up and says, "Is this it? I don't want to miss it." "Not yet," say I.

This year the weather has been, as usual, somewhat unusual. Every day since I chipped the last of the ice off my driveway, I have waited for the other shoe to drop. Of course there will be another snowstorm. But while it snows all around us and closes highways and airports elsewhere, it continues mild here in the banana belt. The weather seems to be in a holding pattern with the temperature going from Pretty Chilly to Fairly Warm, Meanwhile, impatient, as always, Mother Nature has decided not to wait,

The signs of spring are definitely here. My three little orphan crocuses in the gravel patch are blooming. In one of the parks there are two bright red balloons on the top branch of a tree. On the front page of the Sentinel there was a picture of a parasail, which made an unscheduled landing in an aspen tree. The pilot was rescued but the parasail remains in the tree to mark the season. The birds are making a lot more noise than they did a month ago and showing signs of domesticity. And I saw a kite flying yesterday.

The gardeners are cleaning out the flowerbeds and finding all sorts of green shoots underneath the leaves. A neighbor was sunbathing in a bikini one day, which caused me to run inside for my heavy jacket. Our local horseshoe pitcher is back from Arizona and out practicing in the mud. The crabapple buds are starting to swell. Whatever disaster may overtake the peach and pear crops here, nothing ever slows down the crabapple trees that line many city streets. One of Murphy's laws says nature must protect the source of the squishy little apples, so that in the fall the sidewalks will be covered and walking will be like skiing.

I am no longer an expert on springtime romance, but I did see a couple in deep embrace in the middle of Horizon Drive the other day. I did not stick around long enough to find out whether they got hit by an unromantic driver.

But it isn't spring yet. It's only March. March is the month with a sense of humor, the "tomboy with tousled hair, a mischievous smile, mud on her shoes and a laugh in her voice," according to Hal Borland.

We joke about springtime weather in Colorado, but it isn't a laughing matter to everyone. You don't see the fruit ranchers laughing as the warmth of the false spring opens the buds and the return of winter freezes them. The state climatologist says spring is the wettest season of the year in Colorado. Certainly it is the most variable. We have snow and rain and hail and sleet and wind, with sunshine scattered around here and there. It seems as though highway I 70 has been closed oftener this month than it was in the dead of winter. Of course, we know about these things only by watching TV, which keeps showing people wearing shorts and T-shirts putting chains on their cars in the middle of blizzards on Vail Pass.

So when do I tell my friend spring is here? Edna St. Vincent Millay described it well. "April / Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers." It is spring when you can smell it. You can't describe it, but you can smell it. It is spring after the last week in April. This folk knowledge is rooted deeply in my childhood when it always snowed on my birthday. It is spring after Daylight Saving Time knocks all our biological clocks out of kilter. And here it is officially spring when the neck is broken on the swan on Grand Mesa.

My answer to my friend, "Relax. I'll let you know."