You call this spring??? In Minnesota … yeah, we do.

My town made national weather headlines today. 13+ inches of snow fell overnight and we may get more today through tomorrow.  One observer in the area reported 15 inches as of this morning. This is the winter that won’t die! Arrgghh!

I thought it was bad last night.

Then I woke up this morning.

This storm may go down as a record snowfall anywhere in Minnesota during the month of May, and I’m only 35 miles from the Iowa border! Snow like this is only supposed to happen in NORTHERN Minnesota. And not usually in May. I’ve seen a few mid-April blizzards, so our snowy April this year wasn’t that big of a deal, but this … Good thing I didn’t put my snowblower away for the season yet.

We lost a couple 3-4 inch-diameter branches from two trees, and one large tree elsewhere in town fell onto a parked car. This is wet, heavy, saturated snow too. One shovelful weighs about 20 pounds.

What’s funny, but a little sad too, is the birds seem thrown for a loop. I saw four robins sitting out on the snowbanks left by the plow and they looked confused, as in “How’re we supposed to build nests when all the twigs and grass are covered by this white crap?”

Two either sparrows or finches were fluttering around my office window earlier as if they were looking for a place to perch on the roof or wanted to come inside and get out of the damn cold! The sad part for the birds is that this snow may not melt fast in the next two days, which might compromise their ability to find food. Also, if they’re building nests or have already laid eggs, this cold weather might either kill the eggs or delay nesting to the point where the females lay eggs in an unfinished nest.

Oh well, as we like to say here in Minnesota, this kind of weather keeps the riff-raff out.

For a little fun, let’s have a caption contest. Knowing that the following picture was taken in Minnesota on May 2, 2013, think up a funny caption and post it in the comments. I’ll pick the one I like best. No prize, just bragging rights.