(Edited Sat aft to add another pic at the end which I'd forgotten. Some of you will remember this pic from last summer, but it's worth posting again.)

Note: this is being finished and posted on Saturday, but I am leaving the date as Thursday, which is the day I started writing it.

Tuesday was an unseasonably warm, beautimagorgeous day, sunny and 72.

We did not take the entire day off school. We did the Big Boogers (writing and math), practiced piano, and did some Little Stuff. But we also did this:

That's a baking-soda-&-vinegar volcano, in case you hadn't figured it out. And no, it wasn't a random project; it was part of the ongoing "earth science" studies we've been doing since January. In retrospect, earth science was not the wisest choice for winter months, but at least our "volcano week" coincided with some warm weather.

(By the way, in leiu of the red food coloring that we were supposed to add and which was nowhere to be found in my house, I cleverly added a package of red koolaid powder that had been leftover from Fuzz' birthday party 6 months ago. That will for once and for all eliminate the scenario of the kids finding it and asking me to make it and me saying no. I'm not a big fan of having koolaid in the house, so this was a perfect use for it. Since I know some of you are wondering why I even kept the package around for six months, let's just say that I am a compulsive Keeper of Potentially Useful Stuff-- and see, it paid off. Of course, I added it to the mixture when the kids weren't looking and only fessed up after the deed had been done.)

After about the third eruption, we decided to move the whole operation closer to the house so we wouldn't have to go so far for refills. (We'd finally brought the baking soda & vinegar out with us, but kept running back in for more water.) The move to the backyard flower garden (no flowers yet, of course) also yielded some nice soft dirt with which to build up the sides of the volcano and I marveled that we'd not thought of that location before. Spaz also brought out some of his army guys and bridges to add to the fun.

Unfortunately, as many times as we did this, I was still unable to snap a picture at just the moment when the solution was spurting up into the air. Nor did our later eruptions have that lovely red tint, as we did not continue to add dye koolaid to our mixture.

Almost an entire bottle of vinegar later, we finally put this project to rest. However, that doesn't mean we went inside. With predictions of a 35-degree temperature drop over the next couple days, we wanted to enjoy this one while we could.

The kids were all too happy to go off in search of these:

Our afternoon also included this for the kids...

...and this for me, for the first time this year, hooray!

It also included a massive amount of poop-scooping by Spaz, but you really don't want to see pictures of that. And unfortunately, it also included putting up one of these:

The warmth apparently brought all the flies out of the woodwork or wherever it is they laid their eggs last year. We went from zero to 60,000 in one afternoon, it seems.

Wednesday was supposed to be rainy and thus a good opportunity to catch up on Tuesday's neglected schoolwork. However, it turned out to be a nice day as well, though not as warm as Tuesday. We did not spend the entire afternoon outside, but the kids did take some long outdoor breaks. Hooray; I have missed having those as part of our school day. (And for those of you who were wondering whether my kids changed clothes between volcano and driveway hockey, I'll confess that the hockey pics were taken on Wednesday, as I had not taken any on Tuesday. Artistic license and all that, you know.)

By Thursday, the predictions of a return to near-freezing temps did indeed materialize. It was deceptively sunny out, but when I went to hang out laundry, I just about froze my upper phalanges off. (I do not hang laundry standing on my head, so in this instance, "upper" phalanges would refer to fingers.) The laundry didn't get dry, either.

That is how spring is around here; it comes in bits and spurts and reverts frequently back to winter before it decides to stick around for a while. This is the time of year when windbreakers share space in the mudroom with snow gear, which can not yet be safely put away. So far, despite some cold temperatures, we have had no measurable snow for the month of March, which is unusual indeed; however, an April snowstorm would not be out of the question.

The warm weather was nice while it lasted. Perhaps we'll get more next week.

Post-script: As I was finishing this up on Saturday, Spaz alerted me to a deer-sighting in the woods behind the house. This is not terribly common, so I got up from the computer and watched with him as eleven- ELEVEN!!!- deer bounded out of the woods and across the neighbor's field. That is more deer than we have ever seen here at one time.