Snow thankful

I told myself I wasn't going to write about all of this April snow. This snow on top of mud was not something I found humorous or wanted to remember.

But then last Friday happened and I decided that someday I'll want to remind my kids that, yes, it does snow in April. Sometimes it snows a lot in April. I ran into our friend Eddie at the grocery store yesterday and he said that back in 1950, farmers didn't put a seed in the ground until a month from now.

I've been trying to keep a positive attitude about our white landscape. I keep telling myself, "We need the moisture."

Even Glen said, "All this snow better pay off this summer, or..." (He didn't finish that sentence.)

I've convinced myself that, if April showers bring May flowers, then it must also be true that April snow will help the flowers grow.

I found out last week that Glen's dad planted a whole bunch of tulip bulbs in one of our flower beds last fall. The flower bed that's still buried under a pile of snow. Nonetheless, tulips are one of my favorite flowers and just knowing that they'll pop up sooner or later gives me hope. I am so ready for some color in our yard.

And some color in the pastures, too. Glen said he thinks that all this snow will help the pastures green up quickly once the snow finally melts. I hope he's right.

Last year, we put the cows out to pasture on April 12. Yes, I know, it was an exceptionally early spring, but we normally put them out during the last week of April or first week of May. We're now in the last week of April and the pastures are nowhere near ready to welcome the cows. I'm looking at our milk cow pasture in the picture above. Can you see it?

My positive attitude about the snow was tested last Friday. At 1:40 a.m. that morning, I woke up to the sound of someone pounding on our front door. I looked at the alarm clock and knew right away it was our milk truck driver. (Our milk gets picked up at 1:45 a.m. to go down to Woodbury, Minn. for bottling.) I shook Glen until he woke up and whisper-yelled, "There's someone knocking on the door."

The milk truck was stuck in our driveway. It took an hour for Glen and the driver to get the truck unstuck enough to drive over to the milk house, load the milk, and then get the truck out of the driveway.

Thankfully, snow days come when you most need them. School was canceled on Friday, so at least Friday morning's agenda didn't involve getting the kids to school. (I will say, though, that it would have been better if the snow days and late starts had picked days other than Tuesday and Friday. Those are Monika's preschool days and she's missed several days of preschool this winter due to the weather.)

The snow day and the sunshine gave us a chance to do something we had been meaning to do all winter: build our first ever snowman.

I feel supremely better as a parent, now that we didn't let winter pass without making a snowman. And, instead of being bitter about the snow this month, I'm thankful for one last opportunity to have some winter fun with Dan and Monika.