March Snow? 12 Things that might be Good

March is usually a headed toward Spring month here in Kentucky. Flowers begin to appear. There are days with a generous dose of warm sunshine to soak into your skin after the winter cold. The normal temperature for a Kentucky day in early March is in the 50s. Sometimes we're treated to much warmer. And sometimes we're slammed with much colder as we were last week. Record breaking cold all across the state with the temperature dipping into the minus regions. 

We had snow to match the low temperatures, or perhaps the low temperatures to match the snow. Wednesday every bit of the snow we had on the ground melted and it rained. Until it started sleeting and then snowing. And snowing and snowing. 

We sometimes have snow in March in Kentucky. But not 16 or 20 inches. That's January snow. March snow is generally a few flakes blowing in the wind. Flurries one minute, sunshine the next. Or if the snow does fall down and coat the ground, the sun warms it up and melts it away pronto. But not this snow with the minus temperatures. It didn't care that it's March and Spring is only two short weeks away. Winter isn't ready to quit. 

But there is good in most everything if you look. And so I'm looking. What good things can we think of for this snow? 

1. It was a beautiful snow. Really. Friday morning when I went out at sunrise the trees were sparkling and the cedars were coated in snow just like a Christmas card. The snow on the ground sparkled too. Made me think of those detergents I used to buy to wash baby clothes. Ivory Flakes or Dreft, I think. And sometimes if a little breeze shook some off a tree, the flakes sparkled like diamonds in the air. Beautiful. Really.

2. I got lots of extra exercise walking in the snow over my boot tops. Had to be good for my leg muscles. Had to be.

3. That much snow is filling up the ponds and underground springs. Nourishing the plants and flowers that are waiting under the snow. 

4. They say it has to be at least minus five to kill deer ticks. If that's true, then this winter should thin them and other insects out around here. 

5. Kids and wanna be kids got to build snowmen and go sledding and had the fun of a snow day out of school. 

6. There was plenty of fresh snow to scoop up for Snow Cream. 

7. The trees might not bud out and bloom too early and get killed by the frost. Maybe.

8. Oscar was ready to come inside. If new experiences help our brains, then maybe the same help dogs learn too. He had to figure out all the different ways to walk in the snow from pushing through the powdery stuff to walking on top of a frozen crust, to breaking through the crust with some of his steps back to deep powder again. 


9. It gave many people reason to help their neighbors with shoveling and plowing out their roads or donating to homeless shelters.

10. It will make us appreciate the spring sunshine and flowers all that much more for having to wait for it. The flowers are coming. Well watered by the snow.




11. A snowy, cold day is a great time to settle down with a good book and a cup of something warm.

12. It's a perfect reason to make a cup of hot chocolate.

What good things can you add about the snow?

A Time and Season for All Things

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. - Ecclesiates 3:1 (KJV)

It's March 21, the second day of Spring by the calendar. Normally, this time of the year we're having windy and chilly days here in Kentucky with frosts at night and five different kinds of weather in the daytime. We can have sunshine, snow, rain and sleet all in the same hour in March and the winds can be cutting. Not this March. This March we're having a week long (so far) preview of June with record breaking temperatures in the eighties. The flowers are poking up out of the ground and going, "Oh my, I must have overslept!" And so, they are hurrying to catch up to the sun. 

I've never seen so many different kinds of wildflowers blooming this early in the year. The one above is a twin leaf flower and it is one of the earlier bloomers. But early as in April. Not the middle of March. Even my mom's favorite flower growing wild over at the Rock, the Dutchman's breeches, are blooming all over the hillsides. I saw a few that had bloomed and were already turning brown. Made me want to say wait a minute. It's not time for you to even be blooming yet and you're already fading.   

But the seasons come and go as they please. Whether we'll step back into winter, I don't know. It could happen. Generally we face a chance of frost here until May. But then generally we don't have a whole week of eighty degree weather in March. 

It's not only the early blooming flowers making me want to grasp a few days and try to slow things down. I got a titling questionnaire today for the book I'm working on. Not yet, I wanted to say. How can I think about titles when the story is still seeping into my writer's well? But it's time. To every thing there is a season. Now in the life of this book I'm writing, it is the season for titling. In publishing every thing has a time to get done. So, with some imagination and a great deal of hope, I will tell them about my story that is yet flowing out of my thoughts and through my fingers onto the computer screen. I will describe my main characters and the clothes they're wearing. I will suggest words that might make a title sing. And I will continue to write my story and hope the season for writing is as full of flowering thoughts as our early spring is of blooming flowers. 


What have you seen as an early sign of spring? Or perhaps it's still cold and snowy where you are. But spring will come. For every thing there is a season. And spring is a season many of us welcome.


Thanks for reading. I appreciate each and every one of you.