April Showers and Overflowing Band Rooms

It's amazing how quickly the weather changes in Wisconsin! It's a well worn cliche, but basically if you don't like the weather here, just wait a minute, and it will change.

A week ago, we had cold, dreary, dirty, piles of snow/ice/road dirt laying all over the parking lots, yards and ditches. The temperatures were wintery and the wind bitter. It felt like early February. All of a sudden, we were bailing/pumping/squeeging water out of our 50x80 foot shed. The shed houses, among many other "treasures", a "band room" where my son's band practices every week. It had gotten to be a small joke among the members -- one would call each Tuesday to see how if there would be practice that week. Subliminally, the question was "how much water is in the shed?" Even though they're guys, they understand the importance of not standing in water while playing electrical instruments trailing electrical cords through the same water. They like things that go "boom" and "sizzle" and "crash," but generally shy away from things that fry your hair from within.

Every year in the spring, snow melt and rain runs down the hill and through the shed. Every year we vow that next year will be different, that there will be major landscaping done to prevent this next year, and that we will be in touch with the township to see if they can deepen the ditch. Every year we say this during the early spring thaw. Then, as quickly as the water came, it dries up, we resume the music in the band room, the marsh which is our driveway dries solid, and we leap into the outdoors to enjoy the "warmth" (generally anything over 32 degrees).

When I got home late last evening, I noticed that the driveway/watershed that had been created by runoff-then-hasty trenching, was level and graded smooth. No sign of quicksand anywhere. No piles of dirty snow, no kids on four-wheelers using the driveway for a mud-bog; just serene nighttime over a solid driveway. I could see all the landscape lights, the shrubs, the steps (without ice). The Christmas lights are gone from the house and shed (and it's only APRIL!), and the garage door glides up and down smoothly without straining against ice at the bottom.

So now begins the annual Wisconsin ritual, "awakening the land." We'll see how much grass the road salt has killed, and we'll vow not to use any of that next winter, as well. We'll rake the gravel out of the lawn and back onto the driveway, from which it was snatched and scattered by a manic guy on a John Deere lawn tractor/snowblower. (Every year the driveway gets wider, pushed by a guy who loves to plow snow. And every year I threaten to put up posts at the edge of the actual driveway to prevent him from widening it every winter. )

We'll clean up the cans and trash that has flown in the ditch and yard, cast off by careless passers-by. We'll rake, and plant, and trim trees, and mow, and rake, and fertilize, and grill, and clean the shed, and basically get ready for fall.

It is a beautiful season in Wisconsin. Many people say fall is their favorite Wisconsin season, and it's certainly a beautiful time of year. But I love the rapid and drastic changes that come with spring, and the sights, sounds and smells that come with it.

I'm not sure if we'll ever get the time to relandscape to divert the flow of melt and rain from the interior of the shed. But we're sure to talk about it heatedly again next spring!