Last weekend, we returned the kids ski rentals for the season, after the warmest winter and worst ski season we’ve ever had. Then yesterday our favorite place gets 20". Argh.
Like others here we (in southern WI) had a March that came in like a lamb. I even did a little prairie burning, the first I can recall doing this early. Then “the hawk”, as we used to call the winds of spring, swooped in and put a stop to that. We had a good kite flying week, then a little snow. Tulips are now popping up through the snow but no daffodils or crocus yet - odd. No hepatica or trilliums yet. Nature seems a bit confused.
Haven’t wet a paddle yet though. My younger self would have. It could happen any day now. Good on youse guys who are getting out.
PS: Just a reminder. This is the time of year to pick up the winter’s accumulated waste along the county roads and boat landings. Easy to get all those lite beer cans that will be under the poison ivy and weeds soon.
Everything was being covered in pollen until yesterday’s rain. I think I can hear the pollen saying, “I’ll be Back!”. Spring gets here in the forests of the Piedmont of SC a good 2 to 3 weeks earlier than it did in the early 80’s when we moved to my wife’s hometown. April when turkey season would open there was frost nearly every morning. There is rarely frost on the ground anymore here this time of year and it is still March. However, late freezes have been impacting the peach orchards yield here on a regular basis as they are coming into bloom earlier than in the past. It’s like a cruel trick of nature.
Ocean temps at record highs for over a year and still rising, and spring way early here. Erratic and often severe weather being driven by the increased energy that has been stored in the oceans impacting the atmosphere. Call it what you want and believe what you want. Perception may be an individual reality, but it does not change physics.
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I am excited to be going to Charleston in a couple
of weeks for a big family wedding. We will enjoy the warm!
Pink Magnolia here in our yard
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My youngest was married there. Great food and great paddling area.
That’s a good way to put it. The more generalized “perception is reality” just isn’t true.
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It’s at the Carolina Yacht Club so maybe we rent one.
I have paddled Charleston harbor a few times but haven’t sailed there yet. I hope to get down with my sailboat this year and maybe do some fossil hunting on Morris Island.
On this trip we put in at Fort Moltrie and paddled across to Fort Sumter. Then we headed over to the Yorktown and under the Ravenel bridge for lunch on Drum Island. After which we headed back to Fort Moltrie
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I grew up in North Charleston, the poor side of the tracks.
It’s snowing here as I write this. March 24th 9:14 AM
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Here too.
Western mid Florida here.
That means the Oak Trees have been sexy for a few weeks. It is too windy or rainy for paddling, not to mention my sinuses being closed by those sexy Oak trees,
The cherry tomatoes are doing great, the Better Boy tomatoes are getting ready to overload me. I also have seven pineapples showing their pretty little heads.
I am sorry for the snows y’all have, but the property and auto insurance rates would keep you away anyhow.
Here’s to Peace, Love, and understanding for the season, and beyond.
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Mid-Atlantic’s Lackawinta Blues - That Punxy Phil Shadow Casts Far
Most of those so-called
“Canadian” geese,
have peddled their passports
to loaf in loave piece,
tossed by once snowbird
remains now in its town,
bridge to sanity’s fallen
snowing not what’s around.
Least “poor” ain’t always “wrong,” ergo, maybe a “Bluebird” day awaits:
Bluebird on a telephone line. How are you? I’m feeling fine.
Sweetly do I whisper your name.
Lonely solo taxi ride to a, cheap motel on the wrong side,
of the tracks. The facts are tricky to explain.
Cold front bearing down, blowing in from Birmingham.
By dawn the window’s wet with icy rain.
Behind fourteen doors, a sad parade of paramours,
are throwing little white rocks at sorrow’s window pane.
Me, I’ve found someone, to love more,
than the rain.
Jim White
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With snow cones for dessert?
Is that Canada?!
I believe it is Maine where they live.
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Updated northern spring signs:
The return of Turkey Vultures, perfectly synced to make short work of new afterbirths from calving season.
Real turkey footprints on the dirt roads.
A marmot chirping its high-pitched warning from atop its usual boulder, coincidentally (?) just as a gingery red fox bolts in its direction.
Wind, wind, wind, wind in great blustering roars, with dark clouds looming not far away.
Not yet paddling season.