If it’s Thursday, this must be Springtime.
There was a book or movie once-upon-a-time about someone taking a European tour–one of those guided rat-races through the continent–where nobody gets a chance to do much more than spot the Eiffel Tower on their way to the London Bridge. The name of the movie (or book, whatever) was, I think, “If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium”. Which makes me think about the bizarre weather patterns we’ve been dealing with lately. Record high temperature for a spell, followed by bone-chilling winds for the next three days { Which reminds me, for no good reason, of a joke : Kid hands in an assignment about climate and its operation–on time, of all things–but as the teacher was looking at the first page, the earnest pedagogue sees that the student had explained that climate was made up of average atmospheric conditions over an extended period of time, something that this budding meteorologist had termed, “Whethur”.
Amazed at such an egregious error, the teacher exclaimed, (Wait for it.) “That is the worst spell of weather I’ve ever seen!” } Ha!
We’ve certainly seen some quick shifts in the wind–direction and velocity, some temperature records–mostly highs–broken, sunny days and decidedly damp evenings, weather folks on the TV looking about as confused as the rest of us…but with scientific explanations, sort of. If it’s Sunday, this could be Winter…or whatever. Did Buckeye Chuck lie to us?
Anyway, it must be confusing for the tappers out in the sugarbushes (stands of maple trees, available and mature enough to be the source for maple sap, and hence, maple syrup), since cold nights and warm days are the way to go for a good syrup season, but if it gets too warm, the trees throw all restraint to the winds and start putting out leaves, making the product “buddy” and not of commercial worth. And maples aren’t the only ones feeling “buddy”. Daffodils and snowdrops and all sorts of other Spring Beauties are running ahead of the calendar by quite a bit. My snowdrops are trembling right on the edge of actual flowering, the daffodils up by the Y are, I fear, going to get their comeuppance before ever becoming their usual bright yellow selves.
I have not seen the vultures return to the the water tower across from the Y yet but they may be spreading their wings on a beach somewhere, just waiting for their normal homecoming calendar somewhere in the middle of March (Like the swallows return to Capistrano or the buzzards to Hinckley. Are those our buzzards or do they only live in Hinkley?). They can be spotted pretty easily sitting over there on the struts & braces of the tower, as well as on the roof ridge of the Garrettsville United Methodist Church. Sure gives one pause on a Sunday morning heading for the service, to see all of the black bodies lined up there. I always try to keep moving briskly and, so far, none has swooped down to check my breathing. Good thing, because I’d probably stop breathing if one of ‘em came in for a landing. It’s been nice, having them gone, though it might be interesting to see what they might look like with white icing. Ha ! They’re not truly dangerous, I guess, but they do have a face that only a mother could love and I’d rather, by far, deal with a hummingbird…or even a turkey, although they can sometimes get territorial and chase people.
Anyway, to get back to whatever it was, a lot of the critters around here seem to have had a not-so-bad winter, so far. The raccoon which is a “frequent flyer” on the front porch has returned looking none the worse for wear, rather portly, as a matter of fact, when I chase him away from the porch kitties’ dishes in the morning. I have not seen him wearing a watch but he has figured out just when it is that I fill the dishes before I go off walking in the morning (Raccoons are considered “crepuscular”–most active around dawn and dusk). When I return, the bowls are all empty. Imagine that! Several times I have caught him at it and chased him away, but he is a persistent cuss and keeps trying his luck…to the irritation of the PKs…and me, because I refill the bowls when I return.The other varmints active around that time are skunks, and so far, I have seen two of them in the neighborhood, one right across the street and one down by the corner, and have heard tell of at least two more. Luckily, none of the ones which I have seen were anxious to make my acquaintance, and the only reason that I was even aware of them was the rapid movement of those white-striped tails hightailing it away from me. Hope that none of these guys decide to sample the kitty kibble or there will be real trouble. Heaven help us if the raccoon and the ‘possum decide to duke it out on the front porch. ‘Fraid they wouldn’t use their dukes at all.
Pheeew!
