The Reality of It

Well, well: according to this site that I just looked up, the Vernal Equinox occurs today. We always suppose that it occurs on the 21st , but, of course, it doesn't. Rather, it occurs near March 21st.

Officially then, this day begins the spring season, but of course, it never does: not really; not here at any rate. As far as the actual weather is concerned, it's still winter, for patches of rapidly diminishing snow remain here and there and because the day is rather unappealing: cool, drizzly, and overcast.

In fact, although this is considered to be a genuine four-season climate, I rather think that it's really more like six seasons. Starting soon, there will be a transition time between winter and spring, a time when it is neither. There will be periods when the weather is winter-like, times when it is more spring-like, and episodes when it is neither here nor there but rather a nondescript bluckiness. The same sort of thing occurs in November and the first half of December when one cannot yet call it winter, but it is no longer autumn-like either. Hence the six seasons.

I never truly feel that spring weather has arrived until around May. That makes it a rather short season because once June arrives I consider it to be summer. The spring bulbs and flowers will start earlier, for as you saw the other day, we have daffodil bulbs poking out, but those daffodils endure and thrive in some rather difficult weather in most years.

Bleak! That's the words for this time of year. Sun would help immensely, but we are to be denied that on this particular Vernal Equinox. Just to show you how bleak it looks just now, here is a photo from out the back door. I experimented with a little ripple distortion to try to make the photo slightly more interesting, but there's not much hope for it, I'm afraid. That's the reality of it.