Oh that...

"That's just Calgary," said a friend at the pool this morning.  A born-and-bred Calgarian, her reaction to the horrendous summer snow storm we just suffered through -- all 35 cm's of it -- is pretty typical of anyone who has lived here most of their lives. 

Me, not so much.  We were flabbergasted when we looked out the window Monday morning and saw the white stuff flying.  The day before, I had laundry drying on the line, people were mowing their lawns and everyone was in shorts.  It was absolutely unreal.  "Mum, you live in a mountain basin," said my son, who studied geography at university.  He too was nonplussed about the whole thing, thanks to his knowledge of this area.  The only thing he lamented were my beautiful flowers.  Gone for the season.  And they had just struggled back from the August hail storm!  Poor dears. 

But spending money has its rewards.  Two years ago, we called in Davey Tree (you don't use anyone but Davey, my mother used to say -- she of the magnificent blue spruces that ringed our corner home.  She actually used to call the company in to move 60-foot trees three feet.  And we're talking' cranes and backhoes, the whole works.  I kid you not!  But I digress.)

Anyway, Davey trimmed and fertilized our trees and thanks to that intervention, they came through pretty well -- only one big branch in the back broke off.  The rest of the city?  An absolutely chaotic mess.  If you're cheap, or take trees for granted here, you'll lose them.  But today it's all melting, the ice is dropping from the branches and boughs are bouncing back into place.  Hey, we're going to 20 on Sunday.  "When you get a day like that, just go with it," said another pool buddy.  What a city.

Here was the scene at our place this morning:

Looks like two snowmen relaxing!

Of course, children know what to do with summer snow, gotta love that.