The Playground is still hardpacked ice and snow...
It finally has happened and it is possible to say Spring is here in Moscow. The birds are singing, the days are long and the weather is warm. Well warm as +1 or +2 Celsius can be. But it is Spring and the snow has finally started to melt faster than it comes out of the sky, in fact the surefire sign that Spring is here is that it has started to rain instead of snow. Or we get lots of sleet also. That is Spring…
Also we get huge rivers and puddles of water everywhere backed up by damns of snow and ice. Some piles of ice are so huge that they literally will never melt and workers are assigned to chop them up into smaller chunks, so that mother nature can take care of what man piled up, off the sidewalks and roads…
Sveta is interesting to talk to at times. I say the weather man has said the temperature will reach +10 this week. Sveta says, “If he is not lying!” Then she will say,”They tell a lie to make everyone happy for a few days!” Then I say, “Oh, that is what you said last time and you were correct!”
Sveta knows how they do things here and I try to look at the future weather reports and have always been fooled…
Sveta says, that you can not look any farther than a few days on a 10 day forecast, because after the first few days it becomes false…
So I have learned to to try to do the same, but today I glanced at the future temperatures 5 days from now. +27 Celsius is what the weather report is for long term. I then looked out the window and saw two feet of snow and 1 foot of ice still on the ground. I realized that even if it wanted to get up to +27 Celsius that it could not unless a volcano appeared right in the middle of Moscow and turned the place into a inferno. Then it might melt that fast…
It is like a refrigerator outside and until the snow and ice is gone, the old icebox or ice chest will stay near freezing. For that is what we are right now, an old time icebox that will not warm up or dry out until that last load of ice is gone and from my window there still is a lot of snow and ice left to melt…
I say about two weeks and then the flowers will be able to poke their heads up and start to bloom. Also the trees will be able to start budding here very soon. I know that me and a whole bunch of Russians are waiting for that to happen…
Spring may be late in Russia but when it comes, I know of no one else on earth that appreciates it anymore than Russians. The Winter is so long and will come again so soon that in a few weeks Russians will be planting all the plants that they have growing on their balconies and their dachas will be full of guests and joy…
I hope that Sveta and I can get to the village before long…
Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia!