Springtime in Minnesota: Melting Snow, Rain, and Gloom at Noon

Part of my job is to provide 250 witty, bright, cheerful words each Friday. Or, failing that, somewhat interesting words.

It's been overcast all week. It's above freezing during the day, below at night. We've had rain off and on. Tuesday, it was on: all day.

Particularly around noon, when Loonfoot Falls' light-sensitive street lights turned themselves on, Tuesday was damp, depressing, depressive, dim, dingy, dismal, dispiriting, doleful, downcast, drab, dreary and dull.

Still, it could be worse. The Loonfoot River isn't threatening to flood. Not yet.

That song that goes "The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la, breathe promise of merry sunshine"? From the Mikado? I'm pretty sure that Gilbert didn't have Minnesota's version of spring in mind when he wrote that.

We get blooming flowers here in Minnesota: along with mosquitoes, horse flies and leeches. But by then it's more 'early summer' than spring.

Despite their name, horse flies are only about an inch long. Then there are deer flies, stable flies and biting midges.

The Minnesota tourism folks may write me another letter about this, but the fact is that we share the state with an impressive roster of invertebrate blood suckers. Although technically, black flies lap up their meal.

If you're visiting here and someone talks about no-see-ums, that person may not be pulling your leg. That's another name around here for biting midges. They're about a tenth of an inch long, and can walk right through a window screen. And some tent material.

B. D. Johnson and the Trespassing Ducks

Another bunch of volunteers from the Loonfoot Valley left yesterday, headed north to help fill and stack sandbags. The Twin Towns are having a rough time this year.

Here, the Loonfoot River's flooded part of Milldam Park, same as it does most years, but there's been no serious trouble around here.

For the most part.

Riverfront property is a treat to have: as long as the river keeps a respectful distance.

B. D. Johnson's place is a split level, with the garage and entry up near the road, and a really nice living room lower down, facing the Loonfoot River. He has glass patio doors, and windows right down to the floor. The idea, he told me, was to have a place where he could sit back and get close to nature.

This year, nature came met him half way.

The Loonfoot river's about a half inch, he figures, below his living room floor now. He's got a line of sandbags around the house, but water got through, or under, anyway.

The ducks and drakes on the river aren't changing their habits all that much: but since the river's expanded a bit, they've been getting quite familiar with B. D.'s living room. Yesterday, a pair of them swam up to the sandbags, waddled across to the inadvertent reflecting pool by the house, and swam up to his back door.

Getting closer to nature is one thing, B. D. told me. Nature getting close to you can be a tad unsettling.

Springtime in Minnesota: Snirt, Slud, and Chirping Birds

Spring is supposed to be about green grass, brightly blooming flowers, cheerfully chirping birds, lots of sunlight, happiness, and all-round niftiness.

That's not what springtime in Minnesota is like.

Around here, it's the time when winter melts, a period which combines the more unpleasant qualities of both summer and winter.

Dust, dirt, and debris deposited by winter winds on successive layers of snow are systematically revealed and combined as water runs off.

Minnesotans developed a specialized vocabulary to deal with our alternatively-pleasant springtime. The combination of snot and dirt that accumulates during winter is "snirt" snow plus dirt. An "open winter," with exposed soil, leaves a lot of. This year we had lots of snow, so there wasn't that much snirt.

As it melts, snirt turns into snud. Sometimes the snirt melts so fast, it turns to slud. (Snow and mud, snow and liquid mud, respectively. And revoltingly.)
And there's water. Cold water. Cold water that runs over pavement by day and freezes overnight. In the morning, what appears to be a damp sidewalk or street is a perfect, smooth, skating-rink-slick layer of ice.

Then there are the trees, bending over this desolate and soggy scene with the charm of discarded oven-cleaning brushes.

And, in their branches, birds. Their chirps, warbles and squawks remind me that, if I wait long enough, the snud will rejoin the soil, grass will turn green, and trees will sprout leaves.

And, no matter how unlikely it may seem at the time, summer will come.