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As a native Minnesotan, I’ve come to understand, accept and even in some instances appreciate the fickle nature of the state’s, um … nature.

In a state where snow has fallen in every month except July, a person learns that there really is nothing except acceptance when it comes to our weather, which can include sunny and 80 one day and raining and 43 the next day. Really, it comes down to looking out the window, judging the conditions and then dressing appropriately, all with an affirmative nod and inward thought of, “this is the state I live in.”

Oddly, there is a certain calm that comes with this level of expectation regarding diverse weather. You may not like it, but aside from the determined souls who will wear shorts regardless of any other conditions once the temperature hits 50, we just kind of roll with the punches.

Sometimes, those punches result in a nearly 50-degree Christmas, other times it’s a late April, 105 inch dump of snow. Yes, I realize we haven’t received 105 inches of snow at a time, but when it comes that late, four inches of wet snow feels like 105 inches.

Listen, I said I was accepting of Minnesota’s weather patterns. I didn’t say I liked them and that applies to the near constant hurricane-like winds we’ve been experiencing in April.

Lately, when the weather person or weather forecast proclaims, “Tomorrow will be mild with breezy conditions,” I just assume they mean 45 degrees with 300 mph winds resulting in a hurricane warning for the coastal regions of Lake Louise State Park.

It’s been relentless this month. Twice I’ve had our back door bang against the side of the house because I can’t get a hold of it in time and another time both the back outside door and the back inside door opened because of the winds.

Either that, or now we have to deal with ghosts on top of the wind.

Compounding these irritations, is the fact that I still have Christmas lights.

Okay, before you pile on about not taking my Christmas light down, let me first tell you I have at least got them off the handrails up front, so there is progress being made.

Also, the weekends have been, well, largely horrible. Often they have been rainy or cold or  surprise, surprise, windy. Other weekends … I’ve just been lazy. You can see the dilemma I’ve been in.

Either way, I’ve got two strings of lights across the front of the house, attached to the rain gutters with the one end dangling against the side of the house. At one point it was attached to the down spout, but thanks to the winds that has changed and now it is floating in the wind, whipping about in a frenzy and banging across the house. It’s annoying.

Now, a reasonable person would say, “that’s what you get for leaving them up for so late.”

A lazy person, such as myself, would say, “Shut-up.” I suppose I should amend things and say I’m both lazy and immature.

I doubt I’ll get much disagreement on that from you readers. You know me pretty well by now.

So with all of that said, you can imagine my annoyance at walking out of the Herald Tuesday morning, bound for a Mower County Board of Commissioners meeting, and walking face first into another stiff breeze driving cold air into my face. The flags at the courthouse were completely horizontal and my subsequent walk brought me full into the face of this wind.

I tried to tell myself that it is just April weather and it’s something that I have to live with, but like the people who are determined to wear shorts when the weather hits that 50 degree threshold, I’m likewise as determined to go to work without a coat. Cold and windy is all well and good when the season calls for it, but it’s wildly annoying when I should be looking at my garden, or my raspberries or really anything outdoors.

I tried to tell Mother Nature to stop blowing, but all that got me a fresh gust of wind in the pie-face.

I do love living in Minnesota … ?