There is a little snow on the ground this morning. It isn’t much, really, and it will soon be melted. It is one of those days when I don’t know if I need to shovel the driveway. By noon, it won’t make any difference whether I do or don’t. It should make it into the 40’s today despite the white surface and the possibility of a bit more precipitation. There is a chance of a little more snow throughout the day and overnight into Saturday.

I guess I’m just longing for an old-fashioned spring blizzard. I know, watch what you pray for and all of that, but I could sure use something that looked like real winter. You know, 24” of snow – the heavy stuff that is hard to clear from the driveway; neighbors getting stuck in the middle of the street; stories to tell you grandchildren – “I remember the spring of ’13.” That blizzard doesn’t seem to be in the works. A drought cycle is a bigger thing than a single year and we’ve really had one year since we had adequate moisture for one winter and spring.

The problem with the weather we have been having, is that there really isn’t much spring. We seem to be fading gradually from winter brown to summer brown without much of a transition in between. The last snow fall we had measured about six inches at bedtime and had melted down to 2 inches by breakfast and made a tad of mud by midday the next day. The garden was dry enough to walk without getting your shoes muddy a day later.

I know that I will not suffer the effects of drought like others. I’m not a rancher. I won’t have to make a decision about selling off part of the herd because the stock dams are all dry. I don’t have to worry about whether or not I’ll get a first, let alone a second cutting off of fields that are the only source of winter feed for the heifers who are the only hope of breaking even a year from now. There will be water in my tap all year long. Oh, we’ll complain about low water pressure if too many set their sprinkler systems to waste water in pursuit of golf course lawns, buy by the end of the summer we will probably have connected to city water and will learn to live with city restrictions and limits as we watch the level in the reservoirs drop. I have no doubts that there will be water for my garden this year.

There are people who become refugees because of drought. The drought in sub-Saharan Africa appears to be turning into a mega-drought that may last a century or more. Much land has already become incapable of sustaining life for humans. More land will dry to that point before it is over. Millions of people have no choice but to go somewhere else where they will put a strain on limited resources, cause tension and unrest and face violence. It is not a pretty picture and it makes my petty complaints pale by comparison.

But back here in South Dakota, it is hard to tell whether or not it is spring. Maybe the fact that I have a sinus infection is an indication of the changing seasons. I’ve been breathing enough dust to spawn a little congestion and I’ve been burning the candle at both ends for enough days that I fell pray to a different virus than the one that attacked a month ago. I’m not really sick, just a bit more tired than usual and taking a bit of medication to clear my head and control fever. There have been years when I didn’t take a single pill, but this one isn’t among them.

But there is more to the lack of spring fever than a little cold. It doesn’t look like spring out there. I’m not complaining about the temperatures, because we haven’t suffered from much cold this winter. My thermometer never made it to zero. Were we to have had a real deep freeze, say -20 to -30 for a week, we wouldn’t have the same bark beetle problem that we continue to face. It’s hard to have your trees dying when things are already dry all around. Despite the fact that we have no trouble finding people who need firewood, that full wood lot at the church is more a statement about the mortality of the trees in the hills than it is about our capacity to provide a sustainable energy assistance program for our neighbors.

Down in Costa Rica, they’re predicting an early rainy season this year. The Central Valley, where our sister church is located, will probably see the rainy season hit in early May. We know of years when it held off to the middle of June. The timing doesn’t seem to be as critical as the amount of rain that falls once the downpours start. The forecasters are predicting normal weather for Costa Rica, whatever that means. Perhaps their transition from summer to winter will be a bit more dramatic than our slow brown slide into summer up north.

The eyes of our Costa Rican friends will be focused close to our home this evening when the Costa Rica national soccer team takes on the U.S. Team in Commerce City, Colorado. Soccer-crazy Costa Rica will have most of the television sets in the country tuned to the game. It is a qualifying match for the 2014 World Cup, which will be held in Brazil. The U.S. Team is coming off of a loss to Honduras, which now is in first place in the North, Central America and Caribbean region. The folks in Costa Rica won’t let a little rain dampen their spirits. Several of them have headed to Denver. A plane ticket, a night in a hotel room and game tickets is probably a couple of months of income for a middle class Costa Rican, but there will be more than a few who make the pilgrimage today.

Probably watching a soccer game is far better than complaining about the weather. Both will continue despite my complaints. Life goes on. The seasons come and go.

I’m not sure which country to cheer for in the match up tonight. But I’ll probably still hold out hopes for one real blizzard before summer comes. Hope never dies.

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