Happy Spring or Summer!

It has been a long-haul winter and spring/summer has finally unveiled itself. Friday was in the 70s, Saturday in the mid 80s, and there’s no going back to the 40s now. Maybe.

I do love rain, but 47 inches of it in the first four months of 2011 was a little much. It isn’t the rain itself that I mind, but you can’t put your garden in when the soil is like dense chocolate fudge, or thick chocolate milk. The seeds will rot in the ground, and you'll be mud up to your ankles. 

That much rain makes hiking difficult, not because you can’t hike while it’s falling. You can. And I do. But many of the trails are turned to deep mush in those conditions which limits where you can safely go. The Eagle Creek trail, for instance, would be out of the question when it’s one long gooey mud-pit. If you slip and fall there, it’s a long way down the cliff to your funeral.

A week ago (May 28) Craig and I went up to Portland’s lovely Rose Garden. It was the eve of the beginning of the annual month-long Rose Festival, and the thousands of rose bushes are usually in full glory this time of year. We stood up at the top surveying the gardens spreading below, and there was NOT ONE ROSE to be seen. We strolled through the rows of bushes. The buds were tight as a clenched fist. Then we saw it—one bush sporting one fully open flower! It was a salmon-color rose bucking the trend. A few other buds on the bush were partly open. And that was it. When we got back in the car we noticed the temperature was 49 degrees. On May 28.

 A view of a small corner of the Rose Gardens May 28, 2011.  The flowers in the foreground are rhododendrons, which normally are in full glorious bloom around Mothers Day.