It’s not just winter that’s been cancelled here in Wisconsin, evidently spring has been cancelled, as well. We have gone directly from mild snow-less winter to summer heat. We are in the midst what is looking like a 2-week stretch of day time high temps in the 70s and 80s, and only going into the 50s at night. Most people are enjoying it, but it’s also worrisome – are we going to have another big snow and freeze, killing all the tender shoots that are budding out? or is this it, and we are heading into an extremely hot summer? The other night, the TV weather man said the last time we’d had this warm of a March was in 1995, when we had several weeks worth of days over 100 in July and August. I remember clearly because I was living in Chicago and coming up to Madison to interview for jobs, driving my UN-air-conditioned car.
I’m writing this on Saturday morning, and it’s supposed to be 81° today. The heat really got turned up early last week – on Tuesday. I got up that day, and in honor of going sockless, gave myself my at-home pedicure – pumice stone the heels, and scrub the feet well with the expensive exfoliating mint soap with ground walnut shells in it, that I buy at the Soap Opera, finished off with a good slather of Burt’s Bee’s coconut foot creme, “a tropical treat for feet”. I opened the window in the kitchen – it was almost 50° first thing in the morning. The night before, knowing the heat was impending – and just because I needed something to feed everyone (Mark’s son Ethan is home from MN on spring break, so there were 4 of us – Ethan, Mark, me & Joelle, our Dutch exchange student) – I made a dish of pasta with sausage & peppers, using tomatoes, peppers and sausage from the freezer. Heck, if it’s summer, it means I need to get last year’s put-by food used up so I can start new. I’m sure our local farmers are debating hotly whether it’s safe to plant.
