Spring Snuck in Overnight-or Did It?

The grass was still brown, the trees for the most part were bare, the temperature still dropped to the low 30s at night, and in general things still seemed dreary and dead. Then I walked out into the big cactus garden and a bright mound of pink caught my eye. There it was-the first hint of Spring! An alpine variety of delosperma had defied the weather and bloomed, the first thing in the garden to come to life. There, amid all the freeze -damaged prickly pear and dead leftovers was this hint of things to come. Then in a day or two the cactus I brought back from Wyoming started to bloom as well. Ornamental fruit trees and redbuds started showing off, too, and I swear, after one hot day this week the grass turned up green and the elm trees suddenly looked green.

And then I watched the weather last night and the weatherman predicted a low of 30 for Saturday night! Of course, Easter will be this weekend and Easter is sometimes a marker for the real arrival of Spring, so maybe next week everything will start waking up from the long winter nap.

Or maybe not. Once again, welcome to West Texas…