What rituals do you have each Spring? A trip, visit, dinner, celebration that has to be done every year to signify the end of Winter.
For me, it’s the annual ski trip to Tuckerman Ravine. It’s a lot of work, crowded, potentially dangerous, but it just has to be done every year. Hopefully the timing works out like it did this year - sunny weather, corn snow, and the ability to ski back down to the car. I ski all winter, and even travel to Tucks from time to time, but the spring trip with the masses is not to be missed.
I guess it’s the annual doomed attempt to get my wildflower garden to bloom. Every year I take various steps including, at various times, rototilling, killing weeds with a torch, and spraying grass-specific herbicides, followed by the scattering of multiple millions of seeds and frequent waterings, only to have the merest handful of flowers manage to escape the crowding of native grasses and dessication. It just never looks like the pictures on the catalogs, alas.
BTW, props on the hiking up to Tuckerman’s carrying thirty pounds of ski equipment. Even in my most enthusiastic hiking days, I thought just carrying a day pack to the base of Tuckerman’s was enough work. And that doesn’t even count slogging up the slope so you can ski down it. There’s a reason the good Lord intelligently designed ski lifts.
As my name implies, I’m on telemark gear so I’m skinning up the TRT, much easier on the back. I have carried to the Bowl when you couldn’t skin up but my gear is much lighter.
My wife is Jewish, so Purim and Passover are things for us. Having grown up Mormon, the idea of religious holidays where you’re expected to get drunk is refreshing and novel.
Also, I live in Utah, so part of my spring tradition is guessing whether the last significant snowfall will be in April or May. :mad:
-Unwinterizing the boat and getting ready for warm weather. Or at least removing the engine compartment heaters after the last possibility of a freeze.
-Unwinterizing the camper and filling the water tanks.
-Draining the hot tub. No one wants a 100 degree soak when it’s 100 degrees outside, so we shut it off and drain it till October.
-Odd but kinda symbolic: I remove the tire chains from all the car trunks. (After several ice storm incidents, I finally bought a set of chains for each car, so every family member has them in their trunk. I go around and collect them for storage/cleaning each spring)
We’ll be taking the snows off next week. I took the scraper and shovel out of the car a few days early - we had about an inch of snow this week that I had to scrape with my hand. Rookie mistake.
It used to be to get everyone up early on a Saturday to head to the Seaside boardwalk. We’d try to win Easter baskets or CDs on the spinner wheels and maybe gamble for points/tickets for toy prizes on old poker machines.
If we won something, great, but even if we didn’t… a nice walk in a light breeze smelling the sea air? How bad can that ever be in Spring?
Lunch was had at any place that was handy while listening to the waves crash and the gulls cry at all the people who weren’t there the day before. Dinner was always at a restaurant that we’d never been to before on the ride home.
Thanks for the reminder – I’ve got to buy all-weathers and have the tires switched. Also, I had the great shoe revolution last weekend when there was a warm spell, and then had to pull out winter shoes after it snowed for Wednesday. :smack:
I curse the thick, yellow coating of pine pollen covering every surface while most others walk around with runny noses and watery eyes, zombified by antihistamines.
Then in the next breath I praise the beauty of the dogwoods, wisteria and azaleas in all their glory.
I take a walk in the nature preserve down the hill from my house to visit the wild geese and their ducklings and look for bloodroot and Dutchman’s britches.
The fish pond gets a cleaning and I fertilize the water lilies.
Wash the motorcycle and change the oil. Yes, I usually end up putting it to bed for the winter with bugs on it. Too cold in the fall by then to stand out there and get wet.
When the kids were little I used to wash their snowsuits and put them away only to have it snow again. Every year.
