No Longer Needed

There are many signs of spring. Loveshaq has posted some amazing photos of the tulips which bloom in the Skagit Valley every spring in the shade of the Cascades Mountains. In my city there is a much more mundane sign of spring, when the department of transportation sends out trucks to pick up the boxes of sand and salt they drop on sidewalks every winter which the public can use to melt ice and snow.

They all conform to roughly the same design, made out of 3/4 inch plywood and painted bright yellow. Some intersections apparently need enough sand and salt to get two boxes to meet demand. And when they vanish, you know sunshine and flowers are on the way.

But although nature abhors a vacuum, artistic people are drawn to blank slates, and a number of these basic boxes are decorated by neighbors, even though they tend to last only a few winters before they succumb to the elements and dangers of wayward traffic.

These boxes were decorated with flowers, to contrast with the slush, puddles, mud, ice, and snow that often surround them.

Others get more whimsical decoration.

And some are inspired by pop culture.

Happy spring, Deadsplinter, and I hope you have some subtler signs of spring around you which you can appreciate.