IT’S OFFICIAL

This winter has been hard on many people. It has been called “the winter that would never end.” Snow is everywhere. Plows cleared parts of the road but other parts just are buried. Trees have broken under the weight of snow. Body shops are doing a booming business (pardon the pun). But I want to announce that spring is on its way. At least in my mind it’s on its way.

Over the years I have developed indicators of the season changes that I consider accurate. For example the wooly caterpillar that I see in the late summer will tell me how soon winter will come and what kind of winter we will have. The caterpillar is normally brown with a black band. If the black band is small it means a mild winter; brown with a large black band signifies a harder winter; all the way to all black, which was this year.

The herald of spring is birds. I saw a blue bird this week. I thought this was a bird that decided not to head south and had survived the winter. Today, however, I decided that it did fly south but just got an early flight back. You see today there were two doves on my deck courting and this is truly spring behavior. Yes, I am her to announce that today’s 50 degree weather not only will melt the winter that would never end but its here to stay.