Jeff Fox: Get outside, get busy and enjoy

And suddenly it’s May, time to get those bedding plants in the ground.

What? Oh, everyone already did that since we haven’t had snow or frost since about Groundhog Day.

Well, fine. And don’t forget to enjoy the brief season of blooming peonies.

What? Oh, right, they’ve been abloom for weeks and many are already past their peak.

So if you did the right thing and checked the almanac and have waited until about this coming weekend to plant the petunias, you are to be commended for your discipline. And you are hopelessly behind. (You are not alone. I fretted and dithered over what colors of marigolds and vinca to buy and failed to get them planted between last weekend’s considerable number of raindrops.)

We had a long, lingering fall, then about 10 minutes of winter, and when spring got here, it took hold and didn’t look back. The vibrant green that you generally associate with late May or June in Missouri is everywhere.

And it’s great. If we had this pattern consistently we’d sell ourselves as the San Diego of the Midwest: Long stretches of warm, sunny days in spring and fall, interrupted by brief, mild winters. We won’t dwell on summer. Or our lack of beaches.

Or hail and tornadoes. How odd that Missouri’s greenest time of year – April to mid-June, before summer really takes hold and grinds down on us – is also the season of severe weather. The weather that comes with the season of new life also brings destruction and sometimes real pain.

So we scurry amid the raindrops and sunshine, spreading lawn chemicals one minute and ducking under cover the next. I’ll bet they don’t have this kind of excitement in San Diego.

Summer will be upon us too quickly. I know at least one young person already home – for the summer – from a well-known college not far away. Finals in April? Something is messed up, friends. I know the seniors cannot wait for graduation and for that last ... tedious ... day of class to be over, but one of life’s quirks is that in the blink of an eye your outlook will shift from wanting things to speed up to desperately hoping they might slow down.

We take comfort in the passing of the seasons – something else San Diego cannot claim – but even they come and go at the whim of El Nino, a warmer planet and goodness knows what else. So plant your hail-proof, heat-proof flowers and enjoy them. Frost in September? The record book suggests that exceedingly unlikely, but who would be surprised? Enjoy the beauty that’s here today. Tomorrow no doubt will bring adventures of its own.