Amber Litzenberger

I'm sure I am not the only one to have noticed that we seemed to have missed spring. My birthday is right before the first full day of spring, so I know it was supposed to be here — and yet it has eluded us. The spring rains and warming temperatures were at first side-swiped by snow, July heat, more snow, and then the warmth of August. Suddenly, we have found ourselves in the middle of summer and a whole ton of wind.

Now, I thought this was pretty strange, and I commented on it once when over at my grandmother's. She shook her head and said that, as long as she has been in southern Alberta, she has seen snow in every month. My response: "Even in August?"
I don't know about everyone else's grandparents, but right about now is when my grandma gets into story mode so you settle down and listen with wide eyes and open ears. Apparently, when my mom was born there was a snow storm — that was June. And when my mom was a young girl they went to the Lethbridge parade (the exact month evades my memory, although I am certain it was July or August) and a foot of snow fell.
My mom and my grandma went on talking with a lot of ‘do you remember's and 'you know that time's.’ I listened but drifted. I had never imagined it would snow in June, let alone July or August.
On my sixth birthday, it had snowed and I had found that strange.
Everyone had tromped to my house in the late snow and dried their socks over a vent, laughing and sniffing. I hadn't liked that, because I wasn't used to there being snow on my birthday. Yet it has seemed to me that every year since then the snow has stayed later and later.
That was Saskatchewan. In southern Alberta I do not believe the snow knows if it wants to stay or not. The year we moved into our house, it was warm enough to start digging up the garden on Boxing Day. I remember being outside in sweat pants with a shovel, just my mom and I having at the grass. This year it was hot enough to wear shorts and then suddenly we were back into snow storms and shoveling again.
So, perhaps not even the weather knows what it wants, all we can do is wait for the next minute and see what changes it brings — this is southern Alberta after all.