a thank you note

It’s January 27. I watered my trees today.

I moved to Colorado from Chicago. Watering trees in late January is not something that we did. The end of January through the end of February was, as I recall, the coldest time of the year. We would not have seen any natural occurring plant life – or even a dead lawn -- for months. Snow would have accumulated around everything in the city ... and around our spirits.

Here, the sun shines ninety percent of the time. In Chicago’s winters, I would have settled for nine percent of the time. In fact, I think I did.

Oh, I know. Colorado gets most of its snow in March … when Chicago is beginning to thaw out around the edges. But March snow does not last as long a January snow – it has something to do with the length of the days. And Spring for pete’s sake.

Yesterday someone at my bank cautioned me. “Don’t tell people what it’s like. Everyone will move out here.”

So I won’t. Not many people read this blog. It won’t do any real harm to express appreciation for a few warm days in the middle of winter. I didn’t mind compensating my trees for the lack of snow. It felt wonderful to be outside hauling the hose around.

In fact, consider this a thank you note – to Colorado.