YES...THIS...IS...ARIZONA!!!!!!!

Felt the need to clarify that before posting the pictures I took this morning. And YES, it IS May 13th here, as well. Because in just a second, if you keep going down, you're going to be confused.

As if to add an exclamation mark to my previous post mentioning the absolute futility of gardening where we live, we woke up to the following this morning:

Yes, I did just take that picture.

These are, I mean were, some of the flowers we planted a few weeks ago:

And these are our two little fruit trees, planted about 8 years ago, that have never had a single cherry or apple on them due to scenes such as this every year:

And yes, that is 3-4 inches piled up on the railing...

(Seems that "sarcastic wit" that had gone missing a few posts back has found its way home.)

Sigh.... It reminds me of the story we read recently called the Journeyman (see here). It was set in New England in the early days of our country. The poor people planted their crops at least three times one particular spring, to have them repeatedly wiped out. They couldn't just go buy more, and this was their food for the year. Thankfully, we don't have to depend on what we grow to have enough to eat here in this time and place. And thankfully I did remember to bring in my little flats of seedlings last night (I don't remember to do so every night). But it is still discouraging.

Here they said they were "watching a movie" called "Snowing in France." (No, we don't live in France. Not sure where that came from. Maybe Geoff and I just misunderstood the title.)

Did I mention that I just this past week got all the snow clothes and boots cleaned up and packed away for the year? And of course had to dig half of it back out just now. The fact that I only got about 4&1/2 hours of sleep last night (my own fault), is not helping me to be exceedingly gracious about this, or the hundred other mommy requests.

"Can we have hot chocolate? We're cold."

"Can we build a fire?"

Grrr.

Once they get done out there, it may be one of those days when they got to watch a video...or two...or three...

Yesterday they were playing in the water in their shorts in the back yard. Today, a snowman:

And no fragrant lilacs again this year. That's one of the bushes just getting buds to bloom behind little G there. In the time that I uploaded this picture they finished three little snowmen.