Montana Springtime, Snow to Flowers in 1000 Feet

This is what we woke up to at the cabin this morning (that’s the motel building and the shed behind it. If any of you good readers would like to rent this property for a vacation, the listing is here: http://bit.ly/wCoIWE).

Anyhow, things got exciting last night. For the first time this season, it looked like we’d be able to build a fire in the firepit and cook outside. And for a while, it was beautiful. Then I went inside to saute the morels, and by the time the sausages were grilled, the wind had picked up and it was spitting rain. Ten minutes later, Himself, who was still outside, said he saw three bolts of lightning hit down valley, and then the lights went out. The whole valley was dark. It was actually really cool — the only lights we could see were headlights on highway 89. And rain! It lashed rain all night. The lights came back on about three, and about five it got quiet. We thought the rain had just stopped, until we woke up to a white world and big, silver-dollar sized snowflakes.

Luckily I brought leggings and some socks (and yes, I dress like an eight year old girl. Sigh.) but it was a little chilly out there brushing the snow off my car in my Chucks.

Yesterday it was seventy degrees and sunny. The snow had me worried because the apple, cherry and plum trees are all blooming — snow is fatal to summer fruit. Also, I’d just taken the plastic off the hoop houses yesterday. Sitting in bed, drinking coffee and looking at the snow, I wondered if those lovely baby bok choi I’d transplanted were all dead. The mustard greens, spinach, broccoli rabe and arugula I figured were okay — they’re pretty hardy. But those baby bok choi, I was a tiny bit sick at the thought that they’d be frozen and ruined. They looked so promising. In about a week, they’re going to be perfect.

As I drove down into the valley, the snow disappeared. On East River road, the trees were just looking all happy and green and like they’d had a nice rain all night. By the time I got back to town, it was clear that the storm hadn’t turned icy here (and if the non-blinking nature of my household appliance clocks is any indication, the electricity didn’t go out either).

Here are my baby bok choi — don’t they look nice? All cozy in their bed of hay. I’m deeply relieved.

And kind of looking forward to a nice rainy day. I have a lot of writing and reading to get done, and I’m not very good at staying inside if the weather is pretty ….