The official first day of Spring will be here soon. Unusually (at least as far back as I can remember, which isn't very far these days), spring has sprung in Wisconsin very early this year. With the advent of the month, temperatures were in the low to mid-30s, and then sprang up to the high-30s. After a sunny Saturday and Sunday, for the past four days the temperatures have been consistently in the 40s -- today when I left the office at 5 p.m. it was 49 degrees F! But it is clouds and gloom, rain and lots of fog, ground fog caused partly by the quickly disappearing snow cover that was a couple feet deep in some parts of the city (and in my front and back yards) - oh, and FOUL AIR ALERTS (that is not the official terminology) for the past week, with no signs of disappating due to some strange convection of upper-air currents. Being seasoned Wisconsinites, we are alll expecting the other shoe to drop, probably in April, perhaps on Easter. Yep, we're all expecting the Big Blizzard. LOL! And then flooding. And then a new cryptospiridium outbreak (like we had in 1993, the last unseasonably warm and early melt-off in March).
That's spring in Wisconsin. This year we've got an April Easter. I don't seriously start hoping to work outdoors (although I yearn to from the end of February onward, sigh) until the beginning of May, if we're lucky weather wise. I still remember in 1990, while this house was half-built, another early spring. The trees were fully leafed out, including a massive Norway Maple near my south lot line. Boom - on May 15th a huge ice storm. I lost a quarter of that tree, and that loss started a slow decline that ultimately ended in my having the tree entirely removed in 2001. I was relatively lucky, though. Trees were devastated throughout the state, we lost trees hundreds of years old. Entire gardens were wiped out too, for the season, crushed under the cold wet weight of the ice.
But let us hope for better things this year, Jan, old gal!
This article made me happy, anyway. I guess I'm just feeling bitchy because my doctor insisted on putting me back on cholesterol medication, and after resisting for the last 6 months she said look, lose 42 pounds or go on the meds. So I'm supposed to fricking wave my magic wand and lose 42 pounds just like that, after I lost 15 since the summer of 2008 and have kept it off. The woman is a Nazi!
The Vernal Equinox: Hatching The World Egg
Donna HenesUrban shaman, eco-ceremonialist and ritual expert
Posted: March 11, 2010 10:07 AM
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