April Showers

It's been 41 days (and counting) since we've had a sunny day here in Seattle. Every day seems like the same groundhog day of chilly, showers, gray. Spring is stalled. The daylight hours are longer, and little bits of things are beginning to grow and flower. But I'm so darn impatient for some real sunshine and temperatures closer to 60 than 40.

Next week is the Mount Vernon street fair, which means the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival should be well under way. But with the weather we've had, the tulips are not blooming yet. And it looks like more cool, showery weather for another week. One hour of sunbreak and me and the cats get delirious. Clearly we are Vitamin D-deprived.

I've tried to jump start the garden. I've got sugar snap peas in, a new horseradish plant, more rhubarb, some red onions and a couple of strawberries. But they are also in a holding pattern of inactivity, like the rest of us. Straining to reach the few little rays of sun that peek out for a minute here and there, before the clouds race in and we go back to shivering and huddling.