Old timers here have always warned, "Don't plant until after the first week in May!" It can snow, hail, rain buckets and just generally destroy a garden.

One year we had such a wet and heavy snow, it literally broke the top third off of several thousands of lodgepole pines on the mountain. One can still see the dead stumps of all that was cleared out to prevent forest fires. The forest looks skimpy and bare.

This year has been weird. It went from cold to coolish, to the past three days of 80 degree weather, record-breaking degrees, very unusual for Wymoming in May. What has really made it seem rather surreal is seeing tulips bloom in that high heat; poor things, they got caught out.

My irises are just starting to streach for the sky and show their buds; the lilacs next door are barely opening their fragrant flowers; hardly any of the deciduous trees have even started to leaf out; and, we get sudden summer temps.

Last week when we went up the mountain, we still had huge snowdrifts to plow through, no wildflowers in sight. Yesterday, we went to the tranmsitter up there, no snowdrifts, just a few banks plowed to the side, finally, on a road which has been closed since October.

Up on the rocky, open hill where the transmitters all are planted, I saw a few brave flowers opening up, the scouts of ladyslipper orchids, wild snapdragons, and others whose names I do not know. Just a few, here and there, basking in the heat, sticking their toes in, telling all, "come on in the water/air is fine!" Beautiful, tiny, tiny treasures, which will soon blanket the entire baldy pate.

But, it is still weird to see blooming tulips in the summer-like heat.

kat