There’s a saying that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. March doesn’t always live up to that saying to its fullest potential, but this year, well …
In last week’s post, I remarked that Punxsutawney Phil was wrong in the prediction of there being six more weeks of winter. With all the warm weather and quickly disappearing snow we were having, I couldn’t help but make the remark. Never taunt the ground hog.
On March 2, after a day of 50-degree weather, but mostly cloudy skies and strangely increasing winds, we had a classic Nor’easter storm develop. We were fortunate in that we had only a little bit of very soggy snow mixed in with rain. North and west of the Mid-Hudson Valley, though, got slammed with 2-3 feet of snow. The ski resorts were thrilled, I’m sure. The rest of us, not so much. Power outages were rampant with the high winds taking down branches and trees across power lines. We were fortunate in that we only lost power for one hour. As I type this, there are people who are just getting their power back on from last week’s storm and a few that still don’t have it.
Today brings another Nor’easter, only this time, my area won’t get off as easy in terms of the precipitation. There was disagreement among the forecasting groups about last week’s storm as to what type of precipitation we were going to get. Not this time. Although they were differing slightly on the totals, they were all saying snow. We presently have about 6” of very, very heavy snow. Yes, this is the snow we used to make snowballs and snowmen out of when I was younger – solid, packable stuff. You don’t want to shovel it, but you do want to play with it. I’ll be doing the former tomorrow, taking my time with it clearing my deck and walkway. I’m a fat, 60+ woman who doesn’t want to end up a winter statistic because she did too much too fast with this hefty, crappy white stuff, aka “heart attack” snow.
But on a positive note, in my walks of yesterday and today, I saw the red ends of tree branches that weren’t there last week. Those trees are just itching to send out leaves. I saw crocus, daffodil and snowdrop leaves coming up through grass and debris, all signs of flowers to follow in the not too distant future. The pussy willow I pass everyday is just about in full furriness. Well, today, those fuzzies are a little soggy, but they’ll recover. I’m seeing more and more migrating birds return, although I haven’t seen any other robins than the one I mentioned last time. Maybe they headed south again to places where the ground isn’t white. With the migrators, there are more spring songs being heard, songs which will still be heard tomorrow as my area starts to shovel out from what we all hope is the last reminder of this winter season.
The lion that brought in March will soon be tamed, and the happy playful lamb that signals March’s end will be here soon enough.
Only 13 days until spring.
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