What's With Mama Nature?

A week ago the temperature was minus 30, this week it hit plus 12. What the he--! I'm convinced Mother Nature is absolutely, mood swinging menopausal! It has shifted from winter to spring and back to winter again all within a week. I'm Canadian, I like watching the seasons change but going through an entire cycle within a week is just a bit over the top even for us.

This week the snow mountains started to shrivel and in just one day my drive turned from an arctic, hold onto the hood of the car just to keep from falling on your asterisk, skating rink to a suck your boots off mud hole that would make the tar sands proud. Now, I am not complaining, I am ready for spring and Wednesday I spotted the first sign that it is coming.

Wednesday I saw a rider on a sport bike, right hand on the throttle, left hand on his waist just struttin' his stuff down the snow free, sun warmed, sand a salt covered highway! Call him crazy optimistic or call him just crazy? I'm eager but I can't help thinking there must be some question about that guy's mental capacity (or maybe I'm just jealous that it would take at least a week to have my VStar hauled out from the sea of sleeping motorcycles at KTec and by that time the warm spell would be only a memory.)  No, even though the temperature was well within my "acceptable" range, I like to give the spring rains plenty of time to wash the sand hazards from the highway before I head out on two wheels. I hope he was holding on with two hands when he hit the curve littered with just some of the tons of salt and sand that have been scattered this winter.

Ah, but it's cold again and the snow has started to fall once more. That poor sod who couldn't wait to ride last week has been busy this long weekend winterizing his bike - again. I wonder if it was worth it just to have one day of "in your face" riding.

This week has been a heck of a ride. This was the week we had it all - shorts and t-shirt temperatures, power stopping high winds, snow swirling blizzards and a holiday (Yeah Ontario and a select few other provinces for thinking of an excuse for a midwinter long weekend).  But I'm still a believer ... the days are getting noticeably longer - spring is just around the corner. Let's hope that corner is a short, gentle curve and not a hair raising, peg scraping mountain switch back.