Signs of Spring, If You Look

Signs of Spring, If You Look

         The weather is harassing our way of life.  It is easy to view the weather as a thing with a personality when it becomes an unchanging burden as it has been this year. It has been unchanging in purpose, because  every time it should break and get warmer it goes the other way with deeper colder temperatures and more snow weighing down the roofs and the plants without mercy.

         Every news program features accidents, deaths, people falling in frozen water, dogs being pulled from icy deaths, ice breakers rescuing ships on the lakes, roofs caving in from heavy snow. On and on it informs us of the weather's refusal to stop afflicting us as we attempt to continue our daily routines.

         In 1996 there was several feet of snow in our front yard, then it rained and froze so solid ("Meteorologists call it glaze") my sons went out and and ice skated across the front yard with skates.  This year the temperatures were  in the minus degrees between midnight and 6 a.m  for more  weeks than any of the last few years.  we also had an ice storm that made the twice  daily trip to the barn hazardous. Of course, the snow came and covered the ice with another 12 inches. The plow piled up snow  above the 6 foot horse fences at least double the height of the fence.

         Last night for the first time in several weeks the weather reporter got it wrong. He forecast 6 to 8 below 0 for the evening hours but the temperatures stayed in the 20's all night. It did snow all night and put down another 4 or 5 inches but the sun was shining again by 10 a.m.  There has been daily sunshine for a full week.

In spite of a minus 6 degrees the trip to town for supplies on Monday showed a mist rising from the road where the warm sun was causing snow and ice to melt off the surface, in spite of the cold temperature.

          A couple hundred pounds of bird seed definitely went through the bird feeders this winter season.  Now, with the advent of the sunshine, the birds are singing a louder and most welcome sound mornings.

         The National Audubon Field Guide to North American Weather says "If calendar months are used, spring includes the first day of March to the last day of May,  If the astronomical migration of the sun is employed, spring starts with the vernal equinox, on March 20,21, or 22, when the sun crosses the plane of the earth's equator on its journey  from the Southern to the Northern Hemisphere."

         The Sun, the bird song, and the slightly rising temperatures are giving out much needed encouragement.  Local meteorologists are forecasting temperatures up to 33 degrees for the weekend.  Those temperatures will break the freeze line on the thermometer, as another assurance that winters hold on us is slipping. The signs of Spring are definitely leading us toward the real thing. Play music, sing and dance encourage the advent of Spring.