A Break in the weather
The spate of good weather we’ve been enjoying for the past four or five days is about to come to an end. So say the weather watchers who are paid to know about such things, anyway.
It has always seemed to me that we get a week or two of very mild conditions during the month of February around these parts, an Indian Spring, if you will. Temperatures climb out of the cellar and the sky turns blue, the buds pop out on the salmonberry and the willow and it feels like spring is here. The subsequent return to reality is often hard to take.
Because it’s not spring yet, not by a long shot. We still have months of cold, wet glop to get through before the fire gets put out in the wood stove, before we can hang up the winter jackets. They say that Puxatawney Phil is predicting six more weeks of winter this year; he’s probably as right as the next forecaster. Six weeks, ten weeks… what’s the difference?
I’ve looked through the historical records for this part of the country and I can’t find corroborating evidence to back up my belief in a February break from wintery weather, but I still believe in it. The past week has been a good example. Micah and I were out on the paddleboards on Friday and he even went kayaking with his mother over the weekend… do those sound like things you’d do in the winter?
I could take a little more though, just a little, before reality comes crashing down around me.
About Ken Campbell
New Release
A story of sea kayaking and science on the rugged coast of Alaska. Coming – Spring 2014.
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