We had a disappointingly dry winter, receiving just ten percent of our normal snowfall from November through late February. There was no XC skiing and precious little snowshoeing, given the often-bare ground and ubiquitous ice. We were even out in early February collecting maple sap using our electric cart where more than three feet of wind-driven snow has typically collected in past years. All the fruit trees had received their winter pruning on time for the first time ever. The frost had largely melted out of the ground for our earliest-ever end to the curse of Mud Time. We half-expected the grass to need cutting sometime in April.
And then out of the blue, fourteen inches of snow fell a week ago; heavy, wet stuff topped off by multiple inches of sleet. Yuck! The idler arm on our otherwise-trusty Ariens snowblower picked that exact moment to break. That rendered the machine useless. We were condemned to a week of relying on the studded snow tires of our little AWD Suzuki to blast in and out of the driveway.
To make matters worse, the middle of this coming week, we are forecast to receive an additional foot of what is certain to be white concrete. If that forecast holds, that will mean over 26 inches of snow from just two Spring storms – twice what we’d seen during the “real” winter.
I do not like to anthropomorphize. But I have to admit I sometimes can’t help thinking that Nature has a particularly cruel and twisted sense of humor. Anyone who thinks that the climate is not changing in major and meaningful ways is willfully blind
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