Bad Timing

It's been unusually warm after being unusually cold... at least in recent terms. This winter had lots of sub-zero days and piling snow. As a kid this would have been just "Winter", at least for Minnesota.  After many winters in  Arizona, and a mild first winter back north, this winter felt harsh. Add in being trapped inside for multiple health reasons, it added to the subjective harshness.

Then we get a week plus of highs in or near the 50s. Streets of black asphalt clear, despite their sides lined by piled snowbanks. Sidewalks finally lost almost all their ice and are safe even for me to walk on these days. News reports resume mentioning people breaking through the ice and either getting rescued or drowning. Ice houses are still scattered across local lakes while we natives give them the side-eye, wondering which fish house or vehicle - or combination - will be the first to break through and sink, and at what cost. They range from tents and snowmobiles to RVs! Around here cost includes, on top of everything else, fines for polluting the lake with fluids from vehicles or whatever non-native things just got dumped into the lake along with fees for pulling out whatever fell through. One might even be "lucky" enough to have an ambulance fee to top it off.

Aside from lakes, however, it's been great to finally be back behind the wheel, getting out to doctor's appointments on my own, shopping again, and planning that trip to the library to pick up free tax forms for filing in the next couple months. (Oops, holiday: closed! Sigh.) Days are getting longer, sun actually starts to melt snow off roofs and should it peek into the house, can add some actual warmth, a good thing after looking at the latest utility bill, a bit of sticker shock after last year's baseline bills.

I finally could walk safely to the mail center again. We (meaning my son) shoveled our half of the length of the paved walk running between homes to the next street over. The neighbors on the other end who had responsibility for their share went snowbird without making arrangements. Lumpy ice simply wasn't doable. Often mail in our box would pile up for a week until somebody younger and more able bodied could be persuaded to fetch it for us. That path's tail end is visible on its meandering path if one stands on our front porch and looks across back yards. Yesterday the last of its ice left.

Two packages, one catalogue, and one envelope were expected. (We get that service from the post office, often too optimistic, but at least letting us know when not to bother heading over.) After lunch I pulled on my winter coat, with help from Steve because that's still part of my life, and headed over on foot. I could have waited, but after all the warmth, we now have afternoon rain and snow expected. Talk about a safety reset! Clouds are starting to fill back in.

We still have ice over snow in places with a lot of shade, like where the garbage and recycling bins sit until their day curbside. Neither has enough in them to warrant fighting slick ice today. They are big, our refuse supply isn't. I have developed a system where they snug up against the porch. I can stand on the dry porch right outside the front door, reach over with a long grabber stick, lift the lids so they can be filled, and drop the lids back down. No snow, no ice, no stairs. And almost no contents despite clearing out the house this morning. So they'll stay, and I won't be pulling them over wet ice ( since the roof drains right there.) As I inform anybody nosy enough to ask or rude enough to raise an eyebrow, I just mention everything inside is frozen so nothing stinks. 

But the mail was calling, or at least Steve's two packages, promised today, were calling him. He was waiting for a return phone call, so I headed out after getting his assist with the coat. If I take the long path, I had a safe, dry way to get the mail and back. In summer I cut across the grass, but shade still left too much snow and presumably ice in that direction. 

Just before I left our yard's area on that dry path, I noticed a speck of motion. Slow, undulating, motion. Had it all been black on the black paved path, I might not have noticed it, but in the middle was a fuzzy band of orange. It was a woolly bear caterpillar! I hadn't seen one of those for over a dozen years!  Mostly I've seen them in the fall, doing whatever it is they do to get ready for winters. But we'd been spending so many falls, winters, and springs in Arizona, that I'd not even been reminded that they exist. Yet here one was, not warm enough yet to be able to hurry to get wherever it thought it needed to go next. Knowing the forecast, I wondered if it would be given enough time today to make it to its desired destination. The morning forecast suggested another hour in this part of the state before it needed to be wherever it was going, oh so slowly, slowly, in the direction of. 

In February? In Minnesota? Winter returning with an attitude?

Really?

On my return from checking for mail that hadn't arrived yet, I noticed it had made it about another foot across the path. It had maybe 5 inches to grass again, brown and almost thawed in the tips showing perhaps an inch above the ground where snow hadn't totally matted them down. 

Good luck little critter.