When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade, and when a big mother of a volcano dumps a few trillion tons of ash on ya, you make, uh, scouring powder.

That's what the Betster did last week when one of the coffee junkies here left an empty pot on the burner, turning the gourmet mix we drink at the Snews into sticky brown gunk. An old truck stop waitress once told the B. to clean out burnt coffee pots with ice and salt swirled around in the sludge pot. Out back we have a ginormous mound of snow and ash. Ice, schmice.

Holy Turbojets! That ash grinds even the toughest coffee crud down to shiny bar metal. Quicker than you can say "No, you can't have a new espresso machine," our ancestral caffeineation device was restored.

See -- necessity is not only the mother of invention, she's the father of innovation, too.

All that ash on roofs, on sidewalks, on snowbanks and on streets melted our winter's accumulation of freeze-dried moisture, too. You know, snow. Gardeners have been sprinkling stove ash on snow for years, but this year nature did the heavy lifting. Once spring wraps its fluffy claws around the idea of warmth, breakup always fires up the warp drives. Why do you think it's called "breakup," other than the fact that after months of darkness couples who have endured each other get a closer look and say, "I've been living with this jerk?"

This spring, though, a little sprinkling of ash and shazzam, we're talking warp 9 and some change. Every little snow shower this week got wiped out by sun the next day. Up in the hinterlands we still have snow, but the last two ashfalls have merged into one big gloopy mess melting deeper and deeper into the turf.

Yeah, the snow has gone to heck and so has the lake ice. At this rate even the highest elevations should see bare ground by, oh, Sunday. The swans are back, the songbirds are returning and even on the Spit could be seen an advance raider from RV Nation. So wipe your feet, get out and enjoy the mess, maybe with some of these Best Bets:

BEST PLANTING TIME BET: As any Farmers Market fan knows, the Kenai Peninsula has a respectable group of farmers and ranchers bringing fresh Alaska food to market. Want to learn more about how farmers can help each other? Check out the meeting at 7 p.m. today of the Kenai Peninsula Chapter of the Alaska Farm Bureau. Meet at the Kachemak Community Center, and if you want to share some homegrown goodies, come to the potluck starting at 6 p.m.

BEST EATING ALASKA STYLE: Speaking of the Farmers Market, at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Homer Theatre, the group sponsors a showing of "Eating Alaska," a film about what happens when a vegetarian moves to Alaska. Director Ellen Frankenstein describes "Eating Alaska" as "a wry quest for safe, healthy, meaningful and sustainable food that leads to climbing mountains with women hunters, scrutinizing food labels with kids, talking moose meat with teens in a small village public school and exploring how others in the last frontier, Alaska Natives and non-Natives, are eating."

BEST LEARN LONG AND PROSPER BET: The brain is like a shark: If it doesn't keep moving, it sinks. Celebrate lifelong learning at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Homer Public Library when the Friends of the Homer Public Library honor Daisy Lee Bitter, the role model's role model for keeping those neurons sparking. Iditarod champion and author Libby Riddles speaks. Tickets are $50 at the library.

BEST KEEP IT GREEN BET: Homer's best loved park is a little too well loved. From ballfields to playground equipment to a campground, Karen Hornaday Park offers fun for visitors and locals alike. The park could use some sprucing up, though, and the Friends of Karen Hornaday Park have plans to make it better. Help 'em in a "fun-raiser" at 6 p.m. Saturday at Alice's Champagne Palace. Tickets are $16 with a dinner, live music and live auction.

BEST ALWAYS GETTING READY BET: With breakup screaming along, people in the tourist biz have been sprucing up their places. Whether you have a new bed and breakfast or have been greeting visitors since statehood, meet and greet your fellow B&B'ers at the annual kickoff for the Homer Bed and Breakfast Association from noon-4 p.m. Sunday at the Homestead Restaurant.

BEST HOW'D HE DO THAT? BET: Illusions, tricks and mystery. At "Alaska's Wildest Magic," you might even see someone levitate into the air. How? Why, it's magic, of course. Join the fun at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Bunnell Street Arts Center when Don Russell the MagicGuy bedazzles the town. Tickets are $5 a person or $20 a family.

BEST INNER CHILD BET: Celebrate the child in all of us with "We Are All Children," a family- and child-oriented musical performance, from 7-8:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints at 2821 East End Road. The Brigham Young University-Idaho Collegiate Singers entertain.