The Ugly Side of Winter

I don't think I need to reiterate how brutal this winter has been. So the past couple of days, when we broke through the freezing mark and started to see the snow melt, I was ecstatic! But after the first day, the ugliness of winter really started to show.

All the plowed piles of snow started to turn a sickly shade of grayish slush as the snow melted, leaving behind the dirt that had been plowed up with it. Sidewalks began to turn black from the same, plus the added road grime. Even with the sun shining, the world looks dark. Driving down the road just becomes downright depressing.

At home, the front of the house hasn't changed much. As we face north, no sunlight is hitting the front yard, so what melting has occurred is solely because of the rising temperatures. There is melting, at least... the lights that were once buried can be seen again. Our backyard, on the other hand, has nearly completely melted, causing it to become a huge mud pit. But at least we can see grass again... I'd forgotten what grass looked like.

Of course, the mud pit was emphasized by the thunderstorms that rolled through today. Not a ton of rain, but when the ground is still partially frozen and saturated with snowmelt, even a little rain has nowhere to go. On the plus side, maybe it washed away some of the black nastiness... we'll see in the morning.

While I'm thrilled to see all this snow that had us buried for over a month go away, I hate the dirty process it takes to get there. And for as much as I'd like to say, "this is it for winter," I can't. No... because we're supposed to get more snow this weekend. But I'll take what I can get, for now.