Any Day Now

Late January and early February are difficult times for me. Even though this winter has been dry and mild it still has gone on too long and it feels like spring will never arrive. Last week we finally had rain. It seemed almost like an early spring evening, warm and rainy. By early morning a cold front had moved in and the day finished with ice and snow. Back into the deep freeze again for how many more weeks?
Early this morning I decided to go out for coffee and a breakfast sandwich at Panera’s. I love their egg, cheese and sausage on ciabatta bread. As I passed the containment pond the usual gaggle of Canadian geese were crowding the spillway. The geese used to appear in late autumn and stay over the winter and be gone by spring. They are now year round residents and are almost pests to some of the people that live along the shore of the pond.

But up at the wooded end of the pond, which is always quiet and secluded, I saw two pair of ducks. For the past several years this same two pair have been returning to our pond in early spring and raising broods of ducklings. They usually stay on until their ducklings can fend for themselves and then they all disappear in early summer to wherever they spend the rest of their year. I know it is the same two pair because one of the females has a very distinctive patch of white feathers along her neck.

It was good to welcome them back and I will take their appearance, over the word of the local weather forecaster, that it is now time for spring to commence.

  

The Zen of Hanging Christmas Lights

I have been hanging Christmas lights, both indoors and outdoors, for over two decades. You would think by now that I would have a failsafe system. But each winter I feel as if it’s my first time all over again.

The last ten years my wife has taken over the duty of putting lights on the Christmas tree. She had to it if she was going to get them up before Christmas Day. I became so good at procrastinating that her female, “I’ll just do it myself” gene eventually took over.

That leaves me with only the outdoor lights. Each Spring when I finally get around to taking down the lights I always promise myself I’ll pay attention to just how it worked. I have even made copious notes and diagrams just how to put the lights up the next winter.

So along comes Thanksgiving and I begin to think about the lighting. Each nice day I think, “Oh, I have plenty of time. The weather’s nice and I have it all worked out from last year.” Usually the week before Christmas when a really cold front moves in (snow really helps motivate me)I finally give in and don heavy coat and gloves to hang the outdoor Christmas lights.

Of course I have no idea what my notes mean. So I’m at it again. A newbie all over again. But after a mild case of frostbite I get the decorations up and they look pretty nice.

Next year I’ll do even better because I’m going to remember just how this all works.

Now It's Winter and Now It's Not

Blogging about the weather? I know…What a boring topic. But you have to admit it has been a challenging subject this year.

I’m one of those people that like the weather to be the way it is suppose to be. In winter I want cold and snow. Summer should be dry and hot. Spring can be variable, but a slow warming that blends into summer is most welcome. And autumn, my former favorite season, needs brisk days and chilly nights that let the foliage turn beautiful colors.

The previous two winters were pretty true to definition. There was snow on the ground for Christmas both years and last year the snow hung around until March. But this year is behaving quite differently. There has been no snow of any true amount and worse the days are fluctuating between highs of 60 degrees followed a few days later by cold in the teens. What makes it even worse is that when we have these wide variations it means the wind blows hard along the temperature gradient and makes everything miserable.

Of course with all this deviant weather behavior you can’t help from wondering about Global Warming, which is a topic that is liable to restart the Civil War her along the former border states. We take our red and blue state divisions seriously. Religion, science, sports teams, and the weather can all result in gun shots being fired.

I said that autumn used to be my favorite season of the year. But as I get older and the cold is making parts of my body I don’t even know the name of begin to ache, I now see autumn as a forewarning of the pain to come. Maybe the way to solve this problem is to pack my bags and head to a warmer climate as so many of my fellow baby boomers seem to be doing. After all a gentle winter in a sun-belt state or even Mexico or Central America would be nice. And when I want a dose of good bracing cold I’ll just make a visit, although a short one, back across the Mason-Dixon Line.