The brave daffodils are long peeking through the frozen ground. Although bent over, as if weeping, they remain defiant, blooming bright yellow despite nighttime and early-morning below-freezing temperatures.

Patches of short, blue flowers cover the ground where the grass has dared not to grow.

Twigs and branches lay scattered across the back yard, ripped from the trees during damaging winds that marked this past winter.

Contrary to what the calendar says, spring did not arrive March 20, and Pennsylvania’s famous groundhog Punxsutawney Phil, who, on Feb. 2, predicted six more weeks of winter, is off by almost a month.

I awoke Monday hearing meteorologist Paul Williams say, “Snow showers across all of Pennsylvania.”

A short time later, WPVI Channel 6 meteorologist David Murphy announced, “The chill is still with us ... it is below freezing in Allentown and Reading.”

Then, he dared to add, “ ... Overnight, one more time ... be on the lookout for light, wet snow.”

“Probably the last time,” Murphy added later in the broadcast.

Probably?! Is he kidding?!

Enough already. Enough cold. Enough snow. Enough of being stuck in the house when yard work beckons and there is a garden to be planted.

Geraniums, gently dug from flower beds before last fall’s first frost, sit in pots in my kitchen and front porch, straining to reach the warm sun.

When spring finally arrives (WFMZ TV 69 meteorologist Dan Skeldon is saying a “warm surge” this Thursday, Friday and Saturday), I first will open all the windows in the house to air out the staleness of winter.

Then, I will go outside and gather the fallen branches to use next winter as kindling for the wood stove.

Lawn furniture will be removed from the garage, the garden will be rototilled, and dead weeds will be pulled from flower beds.

The poor geraniums may have to wait until July, or at least until I am certain all chance of freezing weather has passed, before they go outside once again.

And, the lawn ... well, that will be mowed when the grass has determined it is safe to grow without being coated with frost or, worse yet, snow.

Deb Palmieri

editor

Parkland Press

Northwestern Press