Sometimes Mother Nature likes to play tricks

I woke up this morning my usual grumpy self and looked in the mirror. God, I looked like Rod Stewart having a bad hair day. Note to self: Get a haircut before you scare somebody to death.

I let it grow in the winter months, but today got me thinking of spring. Apparently, the first day of spring was March 20. I remember posting on my Facebook page this header: “Spring??! Not up here!”

I received some interesting comments from friends and family in the Lower 48 and abroad. Down there it is spring. I had friends come back with, “It’s 70 degrees and the daffodils are coming up!”

“The icicles are growing,” I replied.

Some post pictures of green trees and people running around in shorts. It even made the news on some stations. I can report to them I no longer need long underwear when I go out for my walks. They freak out when I post pictures of moose in my yard — a yard still filled to the rim with snow.

“When does spring hit your neck of the woods?” some have asked.

I tell them we don’t have spring, we have breakup. I can hear them scratching their collective heads on that one. Breakup? I tell them breakup happens when the snow begins to melt and the river ice breaks up and begins to flow again. Daytime temperatures climb to the upper 30s or more, but at night it can plunge well below zero.

“What, do you live in an Ice age?”

That reply still gives me a chuckle.

It is a time when the soil begins to show in the form of mud. Potholes spring up all over on our roads, which makes things really interesting on a drive. Many a tire and rim have been damaged and taken out by these things. The repair garages are making money hand over fist thanks to the potholes. The speeds at which these things are filled in and repaired blows many away down there in the Lower 48.

My son, Daniel (named after my late father and myself), just complained about getting snow in Portland, Ore.

I tell him via Facebook that I sent down that little bit of Alaska just for him. Somehow I don’t think he was amused. Others keep sending pictures of lovely green meadows with bright sunshine. I love using Facebook to keep in touch with the world beyond, but times like these can amount to torture. We still have a month or two before the green explodes up here — and I can’t wait.

When it comes, it will be like a gigantic switch is thrown. It goes from mud brown to green in an instant. Trees, plants and flowers will bloom in a fever pitch of buds, leaves and flowers. I have tried over the years to convey this to all down there. Some get it, but most can’t believe it.

We hope for a slow melt and thaw. A rapid one will flood the place. Icicles will grow and later fall and shrink to nothing. Soil will be exposed as wet, brown mud. The dead growth will rise up from beneath the thick snowmelt to dry and become fertilizer for new plant life.

Bears will awake, crabby as ever. Moose will slink back up to the hills. Birds migrating up from the south will return, hopefully before May.

Yesterday I was looking closely at the willow saplings — those not bent in two or nibbled away by moose — and saw something to give me hope that spring is indeed in the air. There were buds beginning to appear on new shoots. Breakup is coming. Time to get that haircut.

Wasilla resident Daniel D. Grota retired from the U.S. Army after more than 21 years of service.