A seasonal adjustment?

Today we are very glad that we've never found ice fishing to be that appealing. It means that we don't have a big, heavy, expensive ice house stuck on the ice in the midst of unplowable snow drifts, while the clock ticks toward midnight when all fish houses in the southern two thirds of Minnesota need to be off the ice. Meanwhile, on March 4, 2019, the 4th day of meteorological Spring this year, the local temperature is still in the single digits. Today's normal high temperature is 35℉, so we're about 25℉ below normal. Some places in our North Country are approaching two months of consecutive days below freezing. Snow is in the forecast for this evening and this upcoming weekend. Sigh!

Vernal Equinox 2013. Does this look like Spring?

Photo by J. Harrington

You're probably aware that humans have made radical changes to the yearly calendar from time to time. In fact, more than one version of the calendar is in use these days. The Chinese recently celebrated the start of the year of the pig. Well, this all got us thinking as we walked our dog in a -25℉ wind chill this morning, with the actual temperature well below zero. This is not at all Spring-like, despite what the meteorologists tell us about meteorological Spring beginning March 1. Later this month, the Spring (Vernal) Equinox will occur on March 20th. That's based on the relationship between the sun and the earth and the length of day and night, so we don't think that should be messed with. Consequences could be cosmic.

April 2, 2012. This looks like Spring

Photo by J. Harrington

On the other hand, meteorological Spring is so meteorologists can keep thinks in neat quartiles or something. We could let them keep their neat four seasons and still get more accuracy for living with if we just changed the beginning of meteorological Spring to April 1st (Yes, we know that's April Fool's Day. How appropriate!) and adjusted the start of the other seasons accordingly. We're not sure if this change should be limited to the North Country or maybe go nationwide. Despite our weather, the year and the season has already turned into Spring in some Southern parts of the US.

Probably someone should convene a blue ribbon committee of phenologists to consider where the change should be implemented. Then we could get legislation or a constitutional amendment? Prior changes in the calendar we use were implemented by an emperor and then a pope so the precedents aren't clear. Anyhow, the way this past Winter has played out, the changed we're suggesting could do a lot to reduce cognitive and emotional dissonance in the North Country, don't you think? After all, every few years we have to suffer an extra day of Winter, but we manage. (Since you ask, yes, this has all gotten to us.)

February 29

Jane Hirshfield, 1953

An extra day—
Like the painting’s fifth cow,
who looks out directly,
straight toward you,
from inside her black and white spots.
An extra day—

Accidental, surely:
the made calendar stumbling over the real
as a drunk trips over a threshold
too low to see.
An extra day—
With a second cup of black coffee.
A friendly but businesslike phone call.
A mailed-back package.
Some extra work, but not too much—
just one day’s worth, exactly.
An extra day—
Not unlike the space
between a door and its frame
when one room is lit and another is not,
and one changes into the other
as a woman exchanges a scarf.
An extra day—
Extraordinarily like any other.
And still
there is some generosity to it,
like a letter re-readable after its writer has died.

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