Rain-snow, gray, yellow

The newscaster called it rain-snow on the radio weather report, and he got it right. I've never heard of the term rain-snow before, but on Friday, it was definitely rain-snowing.

Rain-snow in April does not sound appealing, and I tried to get out of our morning nature walk that day.

"It's rain-snowing kids," I said.

They didn't seem to catch the meaning of that so I continued, "It's wet."

I said, "It's cold. Rain-snow, you know what I'm saying? Wet and cold."

Finally I said, "Let's just stay home."

I patted the couch, hoping to entice them to cozy cuddling with a book in lieu of going outside, but my son pulled his scooter into the front hallway and my daughter reminded me that we have a weather journal project in the works.

"We can't have a weather journal with only nice days in it, Mom," she said.

So we went outside in the rain-snow, and I held my gray umbrella over me under gray skies, walked on gray sidewalks and crossed gray streets in a gray mood to a nearby park where I saw yellow.

Yellow!

"Is that forsythia?" We were about a block away from the bush when we spotted the color.

When we got to the bush, my daughter said, "No, not forsythia. It's a spicebush."

How many times have I passed by this bush, even sat next to it on a park bench, and not noticed it? I guess I needed a gray day for me to see color.

And I needed my daughter to identify it for me. I've never seen noticed a spicebush in bloom before and didn't know about pay attention to its bright yellow blossoms before.

It was indeed a wet day, a cold day, but, still, it was another nice day to add to our journals.

Photo: Spicebush in the park on Friday.
Drawing: I drew a some spicebush twigs last fall.