To be completely honest — I’ll make no bones about it (where does that expression come from, anyway?) — this winter has been lousy snow-wise. Some say it’s the worst in thirty years, some say longer. What’s certainly true is we’ve had less snow this year than any in recent memory, and somewhere around half our annual average. Science fact.
We could blame it on La Nina (a Pacific weather pattern which results in lower-than-normal precipitation in this part of the country) or we could blame it on global warming (a human-caused phenomenon which will destroy most of the earth’s habitats, including probably the ski industry), or we could blame it on a combination of the two. Or perhaps it’s a fluke. Whatever it is, the mountains look now like they should in late April, not late March. That said, the 60-degree days and the on-sale supermarket strawberries have been nice, but still I had a moment in the car today while eating one of said strawberries of “why am I eating a strawberry in March?” March is NOT for strawberries.
I want to keep skiing. I don’t want to eat strawberries yet, even though I love strawberries and have single-handedly eaten at least two pounds of them in the last three days. Thus I have a dilemma: do I make the best of the thin, slushy, dirty snow that still exists, though ephemerally, or do I call it a day (er, season) and get ready for mud season, climbing season, and strawberry season, saving my (new) ski bases and my knees for next year when (fingers crossed) we’ll have more snow? Do I even bank on that as a guarantee, what with global warming and all? What’s a girl to do?!
I guess I’ll see how I feel when my strawberries are all gone.
