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Sunday, February 21, 2016

Oh, Spring...Where Are You?

I know. It's too early. Spring doesn't officially arrive until March 20 but this has been the craziest winter yet.

I thought last winter was bad when here in New England in the beginning of February, we had two snowstorms a week for at least six weeks. Cities and towns faced a big challenge. Where were they going to put all the snow after cleaning up and plowing streets? That's when you start getting inventive and pile it up wherever there's space. Boston had so much of the stuff that the last of it didn't disappear until July.  I kid you not. There was a news story about it on TV.

Behind the building where I live there is a huge lot.  There used to be a mill there but it was torn down a few years ago and it's been empty since then. Well, it's not quite empty because the city put in a small parking lot in one corner. The rest of the lot is weed covered in the summer while the powers that be try to figure out what they want to do with the land. We got so much snow during the winter that dump trucks were making several trips a day to leave the unwanted white stuff. The mounds were at least six feet high and more when compared to the height of the chain link fence that surrounds the property. The longer the snow sat there, the dirtier it got, until it was actually black. By the time spring got a foothold in the area, it pretty well disappeared.

This winter's pattern has been similar in some ways particularly when you have one storm chasing on the heels of another. We haven't had much snow around here while some places in other parts of the country were almost buried. And if it wasn't snow, it was lots of rain and flash flooding.  (Blame El Nino for warming things up). Then the temperature went crazy. In early December or thereabouts, the cherry blossoms were out in Washington, D.C.  What does that do to the trees when they should be blossoming four months later?

 Our temps have been fairly moderate, considering the time of year but last weekend was a doozy. Canada was more than willing to share their cold temps. Personally, they could have kept it to themselves or sent them somewhere else. In my neck of the woods, the cold dropped to nine below zero and that was just the nighttime temperature. The wind chill was -20 to -30 below zero. It's a pretty quiet neighborhood around here, but was even more so those two nights.  Almost no one dared venture out. Can you say "freeze pops"?  All winter, I've had no blanket on my bed, it's been comfortable without one. Last weekend I had a nice, soft, thick afghan, perfect for snuggling under. It's still here, just in case.

I can just hear Pauxatauney (I know I didn't get that one right) Phil, the Pennsylvania groundhog, all curled up in his warm burrow, laughing at the rest of us. That's his privilege. Maybe there's been enough going on to write a disaster story. Oh wait. Somebody, or several somebodies already did that... Absolute Zero;  Ice Twisters; The Day After Tomorrow. I'm sure there's room for another one.

Oh, Spring...  where are you???