Glancing out the dining room window this morning, I realized there was something my wife should see. So it was something like, “Hey, Honey, you need to take a look.”
There was no snow in our yard. None. Nada. The last of it had melted overnight.
Even by New England standards, this has been an exhausting winter. Usually, it’s either below-normal cold or above-average snowy. Not both, not like this one. I don’t remember this many single-digit and subzero nights, and here on the seacoast, our year’s total snowfall came to more than nine feet. Boston, as you may know, had the most in its weather history, beginning somewhere in the 1880s, I think.
And then there were all the Sundays when church services were cancelled — it was just too dangerous to get out on the slick roads. Well, I’m told we did have a few people show up on cross country skis to sit in silent worship.
New Englanders are usually a hardy lot and simply suck up to the weather. But for the past month, there’s been grumbling. Lots of it. This endless oppression really dampens the spirit. Do I want to write? Nah. Read, nah, except that I have read some powerful novels lately. I am finally swimming laps indoors, but that’s a big effort that leaves me ready to do … nah. As for the indoor house projects? Where’s the energy?
On top of it, this has been a winter of funerals for us. A few parents of high school students. Others my age or older — cancer, pneumonia, Parkinson’s, a brain infection. It’s not our usual experience.
I’ll have to check, but my memory suspects we had snow in November and I know there was more in early December, which unfortunately melted off by Christmas. But the pattern returned in January and just kept coming. Just as we thought we were seeing light at the end of the tunnel, three fresh inches hit us Wednesday and Thursday, which means snow’s fallen here in six straight months. And you thought winter was three?
As a matter of clarity, let’s remember the greenhouse warning was not “global warming” per se but “climatic instability,” which we’re seeing in aces. Many of our snowfalls had me wishing the precipitation was instead piling up in the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, where it’s needed to sustain the orchards as irrigation water all summer. Those folks have solid reason to worry.
Here, spring’s coming late, contrary to some of the photos I’ve been posting — the one’s showing what would be happening in a normal year. The ones I scheduled based on past calendars.
Still, the warmth is returning. The sound of lusty birds greets the dawn, along with Harley-Davidsons through the day and early evening.
Two afternoons now have been warm enough to sit in the loft of the barn and curl up with a martini and a Paris Review — and look up through the open hay door to view a parade of dogs walking people past the end of our driveway.
At the moment, it’s mid-morning gray and drizzle — a reminder of Puget Sound, for me — with temperatures in the 60s. Good opportunity to run to the beach to collect seaweed for mulching the garden.
Now that’s a true sign of spring.
Jnana's Red Barn 