By Alkali Springs Corespondent
We write these words each year at this time. We write them because they were told to us and are true most of the time. This April is no exception. April showers bring May flowers. You have heard that one we are sure. Well, in this part of Montana it is May showers that bring June flowers. So far, later March and early April have just let us know that, even though old winter was easy on us this year. He has not yet released his grip from mountain and prairie alike.
When we are out at our Beaver Creek cabin, we wake up many mornings with a skiff of snow or maybe even a little more to sweep off the stoop. And our parking area is so muddy that we have to plank our way to the automobile and have given up even thinking when it might dry out. It is scandalous it is so muddy.
And for you, gentle readers, who consider us so very dry, surely each of those skiffs and rains are helping somewhat. Especially when considering that they occur day after day after day. Now don't get us wrong. We are not complaining. Wet is fine, be it snow or rain. But you know what really puzzles us is that three days after one of those squalls goes through, it is like it has not rained for a month (other than our parking area of course).
The geese on Bear Paw Lake are going mad. Finally, Beaver Creek Reservoir has broken loose and is open water, but, at this writing anyway, Bear Paw Lake is only open at the spillway. So geese land on the ice all the day long from dawn to dusk and what a bunch of noise they make. Why, we think that surely you could hear them all the way to Kiwanis Camp. Perhaps they are mad because they are landing on ice or maybe it is something else. And as long as they continue to land and ice continues, it is a great place to take our video camera and record some of the one, two, three and four point landings those geese make on the ice. Then send it in to one of those blooper shows and who knows, maybe you will get rich. In the meantime, for cheap thrills, get on out to Bear Paw Lake and watch the landings.
We drove over to Cleveland (Montana style) the other day and what a difference different parts of the creeks make for weather. There are places where aspen trees are almost all budded out and dropping their aspen cotton. Then just a couple of miles along, those aspen are fast asleep. There are some creeks running a pretty good flow and some not even running much water at all, and just over the hill from good flowing ones. Pussy willows are fast asleep in most places even in the beautiful meadows around Baldy but in some other places, around a corner you might drive and there is a whole forest of pussy willows shimmering in the early April sunshine. In the Cleveland area we noticed grass even beginning to get green. Around Beaver and Clear Ccreeks, not a blade of green can we see and all these differing stages of winter and spring are just a few miles from each other. How strange. And the day we drove over, in the Cleveland area, it was pouring rain. When we dropped down again into Beaver Creek, the sun was shining and roads completely dry. It had not rained there.
All this tells us that those May flowers are going to be June flowers and if you are planning a trip somewhere and there is a mighty blizzard where you are, check on your destination for weather so much of the time lately is measured in mini fronts, and five miles away if far different many times.
