Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Spring In Winter

Hasn’t been much of winter yet. Except for a few days of below 10 nightly lows to start the New Year, it’s been unseasonably warm since fall. I guess its a continuance of the cyclicly higher temps which made last summer such a scorcher. But it seems, at least for now, the drought is behind us. Rain has been falling with some regularity since fall, the earth is damp. Grasses are starting to assume more green, and there’s green showing even in the woods. Out front of my office the daffodils—others call them jonquils or buttercups— have pierced the ground with the tips of their spears. That might be a month early, give or take a week.

I wouldn’t count winter out, yet. Two months more could bring us snows; the worst snowstorm we ever saw fell almost mid-March, gone n days. But Winter warmth like this carried tow dangers: when the weather changes, and it inevitably will, the transition is usually ushered in with violent thunderstorms, even tornadoes. And if the warmth continues too long, or isn’t broken up with prolong spells of serious cold, we end up with an early spring and the prospects of a killing frost like we had last Easter. It was a hard freeze, really, that robbed the warming season of all its glory.

So while I greet the green as sure sign spring’s to come, I hope it doesn’t arrive too soon.

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