It was something like 40 degrees when I got up this morning, with a heavy fog and light rain. The rain was pretty heavy all day yesterday too, and none of that was very kind to the snowpack. We’ve lost about a foot of it at my house. It has all but disappeared inside the Interstate’s cloverleafs around Concord.

I guess I should start thinking about wildflowers and stop moping about having to wait another nine months to do any more snowshoeing. I should also be glad that I finally have more than a trickle of sap in my bucket – it might even be a quart as of this afternoon. The temperature plummeted by lunchtime, and that quart of sap was quite frozen when I checked on it. I was beginning to think I wouldn’t get any at all this year.

When I was a kid I loved spring. Now it’s my least favorite season of all. I guess the mud we get around here plays a big hand in that, along with the ruts in the roads, and potholes. I also mourn the loss of the snow and cringe in anticipation of the blackflies and then the mosquitoes. But soon I will start looking for trailing arbutus, crocus, coltsfoot, forsythia, and hyacinth blossoms. Also salamanders and frogs. Daylight savings begins in what… a week? That’s always welcome. And then camping season will arrive. So I guess it’s not all bad!