April (Snow) Showers Bring May. That’s It. They Bring May.

I might as well begin with the last line of the previous post: “Here’s hoping that by the time I publish the next post the kids are back in school and I’m back at work and the world is wide open again. And we’ve been hit by an unforeseen change in the weather and are running around in our bathing suits.”

Did you hear the universe laughing at me?

It is Sunday the 16th of May as I sit me down to cobble this thing together. Maddie is home and off school this month; Molli has had a few days of classes at school, but is once again schooling from home this week; I am still not back at work, and despite a couple of beautiful summer days about a week ago, we’ve regressed right back to crap weather.

On the glass-half-full side, however, we’ve been enjoying the long holiday weekends of the Danish “spring,” I get my first vax shot tomorrow, and there are rumors I may get to return to the office as early as this next Friday, the 21st.

We start with a picture from April 8, which is actually a few days before the last post. Didi often goes for bigger sticks than she can handle, but she actually managed to drag this ten-footer around for a while.

The cold weather had allowed me to procrastinate trimming the apple tree until much later than usual (too late, really: next year I’ll try doing it much earlier than usual).

Before:

After:

Different approach this year: I just cut away all the bad growth down low and then tried to cut the whole thing down to a uniform height. That was it.

And unsurprisingly enough, it wasn’t long before this happened:

Really.

Not only did it snow within a day of my trimming the damn apple tree: there were several more days of snow ahead of us in April.

It never stuck for very long: it just kept happening.

Here’s a shot of the evening terrace taken on afternoon while I was working in the basement and was startled by what sounded like a truck dumping a full load of ball bearings outside.

It was hail at that point, and sizeable hail, but it then turned to snow, then frozen slushy stuff, and within a few hours it was all gone again.

By mid-April, the citizens of Værløse had apparently had enough of the “one-way” policy around Søndersø: on a walk with Didi I found the sign had been tossed into the lake:

These pictures give me enormous satisfaction.

I wanted a shot with the vacated stand and the submerged sign, and I got it, but I’ll concede it’s a very stupid and artless picture if you don’t know what it’s about.

(And I should stress for the record that this was how I found things: I did not jettison the sign myself, though in my younger days I might well have.)

One weekend afternoon when the weather was tolerable enough to allow biking without gloves or a hat, I chose to do a new route and circumnavigate Furesø. Should have been about a 75-minute ride of about 30 km.

It was quite picturesque, especially the parts where I took the wrong trails.

And I stumbled across sights I’d never seen before, like the one below, which had no signage or anything to communicate what it was.

Viking gravestone? Primitivist sculpture of a Volkswagen Beetle? Random geological formation? Your guess is as good as mine.

But when the sun was out (and it was out for most of my ride), it was beautiful and it seemed like spring was really finally on the brink of becoming a reality.

Unfortunately, I missed an important turn and ended up having to loop around another lake entirely to make my way back to Værløse, so the ride ended up being closer to 40 km and taking closer to two hours.

A propos of nothing, here’s a look at the new house we’ve been watching is coming along:

And that feeling of spring being right around the corner took yet another hit: the next pic is from the 26th of April:

And yes, that’s more snow.

I thought I’d take a picture of Maddie’s painting “studio” while it was looking unusually tidy. (And yes, this is “unusually tidy.”)

Despite the sporadic snows and the continuing overnight frosts, spring really was coming along, as the verdant forest floor could attest:

Throughout this period Molli was jamming like mad on her final paper for the school year. She worked diligently, virtually around the clock. In fact, she worked close to 24-hours straight through, non-stop, in the home stretch to finish it off.

Maybe a little too much caffeine?

At the same time, Trine and I took Maddie down to southern Sjælland to get some help with Maddie’s anxiety. It was a productive visit that we all believe will lead to good things.

I love the next two shots of Didi, taken in Hareskov:

“What if I never find out who is a good girl?”

“Or worse… what if they think it’s me?“

I don’t remember why there was a sudden compulsion to make these cookies, but Maddie made a batch and Trine made a batch and they were spectacular. Like miniature cakes. So filling that even Maddie couldn’t eat (much more than) one at a sitting.

We finally got around to spring cleaning, and we finally got around to saying goodbye to the faithful Snapper I 422 snowblower. Gert had left it to us with the house, and Trine’s pretty sure it had been his snowblower all the way back in his Wisconsin days, so it was nearly 30 years old and had been rebuilt and souped up on several occasions over the years.

I was a little nervous getting rid of it: it was only the second day of May, and the way things were going it felt like a massive snowstorm was not unlikely before spring showed up for real.

(Spoiler: so far, so good.)

We lowered the television on Maddie’s wall so she could use it as a monitor. And we got her a mechanical gaming keyboard.

It’s colorful.

She’s thrilled with her new setup. In fact, tonight we even took it up another notch by getting her a gaming headset.

Note for the permanent record: for the past seven years, I have been taking Didi to Hareskov at least once a week more or less every week of the year, come what weather there will. I use the same parking lot on almost every visit. And in all that time, on all those visits, the cars have been parked with their hoods facing north on the northern side of the little lot, and south on the southern side. That allowed for 10-12 cars in the lot, with ample room between them for cars to navigate in and out of the spaces.

So what the hell were these people thinking?

You can’t tell from the picture, but they’re pointing east. And there’s a car just out of frame on the right doing the same damn fool thing. Making parking on the north and south sides of the lot more or less impossible.

I’m only noting it for the record because really, when I think about it, it’s more of a wonder that no one’s ever parked like that before. If you’re first to the lot and have never been there before, then why not?

The trees were by now finally greening up a little:

My friend Mads had moved way up to Nordsjælland on April 1, and I finally got a chance to see the “estate.” Lot of land, most of it overrun with chickens. When he lived down by us in Ballerup he had five or six in a henhouse. Now he’s got “about forty,” and they were all over… but it hardly mattered, because with all that territory they’re spread out enough not to be too annoying.

Our own Emma, on the other hand, has adopted a very annoying habit of lounging in our bathtub. What the hell kind of cat chooses to lie in a bathtub?

(I think it’s because the girls have taught her that the bidet is a big ceramic water fountain for her personal refreshment.)

May 11 was Didi’s seventh birthday. Her present was massive beef bone, bigger than her own head. Trine had bought it a day or two beforehand, and it had been sitting on the counter tormenting the poor dog. Finally it was time to give her the gift.

The next picture is kind of a brag, I guess: she’s so well trained (with food) that however tempting, she will not touch any food or treat set before her until she hears the magic word (“værsgo!”).

Suffice to say, she had a happy birthday.

And just a day or two later, the woods were finally exploding with greenery.

So it was time forget about the weather and simply declare it spring.

Oh! Remember that ten-foot branch Didi had mastered back in April? Just this past weekend she managed to get a 12-15 footer and drag it around a fair bit.

Also for the permanent record: a selfie Molli sent us of herself with Kalle enjoying a party.

And a painting Maddie did at some point in April, which is among my favorites. We need to frame this one and hang it up:

And for comparison, here’s another:

That’s by an artist named Michaela Eichwald. It’s from 2015, and it’s called “Duns Scotus,” and it’s on view at MOMA right now.

Really. You could pay money at a museum to look at that.

There are very few Maddie paintings I don’t prefer to Ms. Eichwald’s.

And finally, Trine saw a picture Bob had posted on Facebook and forwarded it to me “for the family album.” Which is more or less what this blog is, so here it is, with thanks to Bob:

(Lil and her mom from, I think, the 1940s.)

# # #

Trine passed her stress coaching exams this month, so will get her certification, and she’s picked up a couple of clients for her private practice.

And we’ve booked our trip to Florida, the bizarre timing of which will surely make for the weirdest Christmas ever. We’re all looking forward to it: Maddie has never had an American Christmas, or any Christmas at all with Nana and Pop Pop. And Molli hasn’t had an American Christmas with them that she can remember (she was a toddler the last time we did it).

We’re also (I note for the permanent record) waiting to hear from the bank on how much we can borrow against our equity: the house and garage need new rooves, we need a new kitchen, we’re ready to have the pool floored over to add a massive amount of livable space, the yard needs to be leveled and retiled… the list goes on a lot longer than that. Hopefully by the time of the next post I’ll be able to share all the exciting projects we have underway.

And by this time next month, the girls should both be back in school on a daily basis (and getting close to summer vacation), and I should be back at the office on a daily basis, and I will be fully vaccinated.

So once again, we end on a note of optimism. We’ll see how that works out.

Finally, no fun memes caught my eye this month, but one meme sure captured the thematic feel of it all: