So they came into town, my family did. My aunt. My brother and sister-in-law. My niece from Berkeley. My other niece soon to be (perhaps) from Austin. My nephew. And my mother.
They came to town as the weather was oscillating wildly between warm, spring, sunshiny days and cold and dreary. Except the Berkeley niece, they came fleeing freezing cold and snow. They came expecting sun and blue skies and spring flowers. The came expecting March to be going out like a lamb.
But although the weather here was far better than there, there and there, it was by no means accommodating. There was wind and drizzle, and the skies were an uninviting grey, a drag to us as hosts, although we tried to conceal our disappointment as our visitors were likely were quite happy with the transitions they made.
The several days flew past. And the visitors left town, flight by flight, returning to Illinois and Ohio and New York, returning to the weather they had fled.
And the following day, the very next day, the sun reappeared and temperatures climbed into the 70s. And after that with the temperature in the mid 80s, we found ourselves rolling down the car windows to get a break from the heat.
And on that day, the Irises, many of which had succumbed to the first freeze several weeks ago (the same freeze that killed the tomatoes and the buds on the Spiderwort and on the Pomegranate and Ash trees)… On that day so soon after the visitors had gone, the Irises and Blue Bonnets and Englemann’s Daisies and Prairie Verbena and various wild, flowering weedy things exploded.
Missed it by that much.
