This is going to be a delightful spring.

[Sim Kid]

So far, what has our weather been like?

A few days where it was over 60, one day where it was over 70. (And on the very first day of the year the temperature is over 70? We're on FIRE again just like last year!)

Last week, the temperature goes down to about 13 below. Hooray - now all the nurseries had to scramble or else every single one of their stock will end up dead. Most o them are saved, however if you have something on the landscape? Yeah... sorry it's dead. No Forsythias or Prunuses this year!

And right now? There's a blizzard outside. It's been snowing non-stop since Monday morning. I woke up at like 6:30 AM on Monday, couldn't see more than a few meters outside my window and just thought "**** it." and went back to bed. Turns out they canceled school that day. (I like how they announced that they'd close at 3 PM... when the day is almost over anyways.)

So now anything that survived last week's deep freeze is now going to be killed by the blizzard. Already I've had to go and shake snow off the trees four times... in the last hour. No leaves this year. :/ we'll be lucky if we're not having to replace or cut down some of the trees. I know for a fact the tree outside my house (we cut ours down last year) won't survive... half of it got blown clean off in those tornado-force winds that blew the house all the way to Oz last year. (also my house landed on Evanora... hey it's not my fault she was right under the house. How was I supposed to know freak winds would blow my house and the basement off of the foundation and conveniently land right on her?)

Might be a good year to work in landscape business but honestly, they're just going to get overloaded. The same thing happened in 2011 when a blizzard caused widespread tree damage that most trees never recovered from. The lines to buy plants were way too long and there's just so much demand that retail establishments can't carry them, or the plants get bought out faster than they can be produced, even with state-of-the-art-accelerated-growth-techniques that some production facilities use.

Oh... and some of the greenhouses, at least the older ones now have to get snow off. That is... for the ones that didn't collapse when it started falling faster than they could knock it all off.

As an added bonus, did everybody's brains freeze along with the weather? Because everyone seemed to decide "There's a blizzard outside and the roads are barely drivable with the black ice all over... LET'S GO TO SUBWAY!" and proceeded to bum-rush the store, essentially meaning that everyone working there won't be able to get home at a decent time. >.<; They finally just said "Okay, guys, we're closing due to the weather - it's not done snowing yet and we need to go home before the roads got worse" and the custoers apparently couldn't decipher that "Closed" means "Closed."
So many of them kept rattling the gates saying "I just want three footlongs!" and would just ask "What does that mean?" when we had to explain the concept of "Closed" to them. Good lord, it's a good thing we rarely get tornadoes out here - half this town would be dead in a minute because their first response is to line up to get subway sandwiches instead of getting to shelter. Because when I think "Blizzard", I think "Subway". Don't you people have any food in your house, or a grocery store where people are practically risking their lives staying out in this blizzard with black ice? (There've been several car accidents and trust me - it's slippery.)