Chill

This has been an absurdly cold spring. I am more than ready for temperatures to return to the normal range. This week every night has dropped to 25 or thereabouts. We put lettuce, peas, and swiss chard out in the first garden bed over a week ago and only just now is the lettuce starting to sprout; one pea has sprouted. Indoors, the peas sprouted in two days. It's getting warm enough during the day (relatively speaking; mid fifties is still cool for the time of year) but that 25 degrees at night is just keeping everything inert. This weekend it should warm into the 60s finally, and Sunday night it's only supposed to be in the mid-30s. Then the rest of the week should be lows in the forties--of course, it's also supposed to rain every single day.
We have many, many seedlings now. Over a hundred I think, and a few more yet to plant (parsley, another cucumber or two...). We don't quite have an ideal setup for them here in the house; they live in the dining room by the window, which I've taped interfacing to so the seedlings don't dry out in the direct sun. It's the best I can do until we can actually set them out, but it's still too cold. Granted the average date of last freeze is late this month, so we weren't planning to set them out until the beginning of April anyway.
The other thing about the cold, the plants are all just sitting on their buds, waiting. The peaches and oaks are about ready to burst, tuliptrees, too, and my baldcypress is clearly wondering what's going on. The forsythia down at the street looks like it could be in bloom tomorrow. Next week, with the warmer weather, should actually be the start of spring. I hope so. I'm ready.