Several 80°+ days this past week kicked aside the snowbanks and pushed up flowers.

The crocus I planted for Irene appeared in force yesterday.

They regret it today. We are forecast to have highs in the 40s for the rest of the week. I console myself by remembering we had an 18” snowfall on April 15th five years ago…and it melted the next day.

A week ago the Grand Girls hunted the eggs in the Duck Mansion.

Felix tried to convince his mom mom that he’d be clean, but she nixed his being in close contact with unwashed eggs. We’ll work on her some more for next year.

Although my girls often hunted eggs in the snow, the drifts were a bit high for toddlers on April 9th.

Going from highs in the 30s to highs in the 80s melts snow spectacularly. We had rivers running through our gardens on the 10th.

The sun freed the gates and then the ducks nibbled the snow to oblivion.

The garlic made an appearance on the 12th.

As did my sister, who (with her husband) dropped in to admire our ducks as they made a cross country trek.

The St. Croix River keeps rising. The first photo is from April 13th. The second from the 14th. The towns downstream pile sandbags and pray for cold weather to slow the melt.

We celebrated birthdays yesterday while it rained steadily, if slowly. The wind howls as I write and I am grateful that our wood pile isn’t entirely exhausted…yet. I am set up to sand and varnish boards for the bathroom. I need to get my lumber out of the future stairwell so we can transform it from a storage closet. Once that space is cleared and the wall between the addition and the original house gets wiring, wallboard, and paint, we can put the final flooring in! Not bad if you say it fast… There is something about living in a place where nature hands out surprises every single day that makes anything seem possible.

4/17 update: the river crept into the boat ramp parking area sometime overnight. The water marks on the tree trunks indicate a falling water level. At last.