It would appear that our unusually gray and wet “Arizona winter” is over, with a wide open, HOV-lane way clear to what promises to be a short spring before we start getting much warmer weather.

If you’re a golfer or a Spring Training fan, it’s hardly been Chamber of Commerce weather this winter. The folks who came down here for the Christmas / New Year’s holidays found the Valley of the Sun anything but: the weather was lousy. And while Waste Management Phoenix Open weekend was OK, it was a chilly one, never really got out of the 60s even on the sunniest of days.

Of course, for those of us who call these parts home you won’t get a whole lot of complaints – rain has been fairly regular and decently plentiful. Looking at the Southwest in general, the mountains of California, Nevada, and Arizona have been absolutely pounded with wet snow on a regular basis since the New Year. That’s got to be good news if you’re responsible for monitoring water levels on the Colorado River and Lake Mead. Even folks like yours truly have benefitted: I haven’t had to run my irrigation systems for a straight week yet this year, and there have been a couple of weeks where I’ve had the water completely turned off.

But, as the Rolling Stones once sang, “It’s All Over Now”: next week we’ll be in the mid-to-high ’80s, and while that will feel really nice compared to what we’ve had thus far this year, those of us who live around here all know that the ’80s are merely a hop skip and jump to the ’90s, and after that we’ll be well on our way to May and the first triple-digit days of the year. After that, monsoon season won’t be far behind.

Here at the Richard hacienda, the irrigation system goes back on starting tomorrow and probably won’t get shut off anytime soon. It’s near time to schedule the feeding of our queen palms in the back. Looking out my home office window on this sun-drenched day, I’ve got buds on our lime tree; the night air will soon be sweet with the fragrance of fruit tree flowers. It won’t be as nice this year as it has been in the past: the guy at the end of the street cleared out all his orange bushes and trees – a damned shame because it made the walk to and from the mailbox a dreamy, lovely experience.

But one look at the calendar tell you that the year is already flying by: there’s corned beef and cabbage to be picked up at the supermarket for St. Patrick’s Day, and we’re less than a month away from Masters week. Heck, any day now I expect to hear from Goodboys Exec-Comm where we’ll be staying and playing for this year’s Goodboys Invitational weekend – it’s a damned good thing my hand is finally rounding into shape for scheduling my first round of golf for the year.

The year is flying by.