Seasons in Minnesota

There was a radio commercial once that had people mocking the seasons in MN. In your best Norwegian voice, "Oh, ya there's winter for sure. And road construction. Oh, and the fishing opener, der hey." Don't remember the 4th one, maybe "Sprummer". A mixture of spring and summer. Where we really don't get much of a spring before we're in the blazing 90 degree humidity of summer.

Well in our neighborhood recently we've been experiencing two seasons at once. Summer and road construction. Some days I feel like the Grinch when he makes reference to all the 'NOISE, NOISE, NOISE', that comes from down in Whoville. Because from 7am (sometime earlier) until at least 4 or 5pm, our neighborhood is noise. Lots of beeping of trucks backing up, rumbling of dump trucks and house shaking steamrollers trying to compact the dirt so the roads are at least "navigable". I use that term loosely, because most days I pray I can make it out of here in my humble mini-van and pray when I come home that I can make it in my garage.

Here are some pictures from our living room window yesterday. They dug up the entire street in front of our house. They knocked on the door at 8am and said if you'd like to go anywhere today we suggest you move your car to a nearby side street.

See those little yellow flowers there in the foreground. Those are right at the bottom of the steps to our front door. That's how close they are. This is our driveway and front steps. And these rest are just a few more for fun.The back tire on this front end loader is where our mailbox used to be. (Oh, I forgot to mention they've moved all the mailboxes in our neighborhood to one location. It's about 3-4 blocks from our house.) Yesterday was also garbage/recycle day, so the workers had to haul 4 houses worth of garbage cans and recycle bins to the corner. They brought it back too though, so that was nice.

I also forgot to mention that the work they're doing is a little more than road construction. Yesterday they were replacing the water main that runs down our street. They must be steamrolling right now because I can feel the vibrations as I type. Thankfully I think the kids are getting used to it and have been sleeping through it for nap times. Don't know when they'll pave again, but one schedule we received has them working through October. I'll keep you posted on their progress.