On the fist day of spring my FB page was overflowing with Kill Puxatawney Phil images and people complaining  about the weather.

It’s MARCH people – in CNY – How long have you lived here?

Now I live in a college town so many folks haven’t lived here long, and many have never lived in a cold climate. This is not the case with my FB friends. Most of us grew up in NYS (some may have moved to the Carolinas for too long, but hey – remember Rochester?) You don’t take your mid-terms on the first day of school, and you don’t get tulips and daffodils on the first day of spring in NYS (except at the florist of course). 

I’ve been in CNY for over 30 years now and I think we have had some sort of frozen precipitation at almost every Easter Son-rise Service, no matter when Easter fell, and even if the temps rose into the 60’s later in the day. We’ve had snow for Mother’s Day. My daughter was born April 5th, 1979. We came home from the hospital on a gorgeous sunny 70 degree day. She went to the barn her first day home. One week later I went back to work in long johns and coveralls. Heck – my first June working on a farm I started the mornings in coveralls and coat, and then got sunburned in the afternoon mowing hay.

Now I have no problem with people being ready for warm weather with sunshine and getting out into the garden. We’re all ready for a change.

I can’t wait to open all the doors and windows to air this place out.

It’s those folks who act like it is a personal affront to them because we’re still having March weather – in March – mid-March. It has been a little colder than average, about 0.6 degrees according to our University weather station, but hey, we’ve had almost no snow. Seasonally we are 14″ below average snowfall here in Ithaca (but hey – in 2011 we got 15″ on one March day – so we still could even out). And consider this – it was the first day of spring all over the northern hemisphere. Obviously that doesn’t mean the same thing in LA and Duluth. Nor in Georgia USA and the Georgian Republic of the former USSR.

As a lifelong citizen of NYS I always felt that the first day of Spring was a promise of better times ahead – and of mud season. Spring in March was the appearance of Crocuses and the emergence of the green fingers of future Daffodils and Iris. Buds on trees flirted with the still present danger of a hard freeze. And though the April rains were coming, May would come soon after with the giddy scent of Lilacs.