Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Dog Days of Winter

         Now I know you'll be saying "dog days of winter!" What's he talking about? I know I'm borrowing very heavily from dog days of summer. I also know that dog days of summer refers to the hot muggy uncomfortable time when the best of summer is over. I also know that for the ancients they knew that the most prominent star at the time was the dog star and that's how we think we got the term "dog days of summer."

       I like to think that we are in a very uncomfortable part of our winter which is slowly moving toward it's end. February here has been brutal this year. We usually think that once we get to February that we will get a cold spell but it won't last long as we will get a mild spell. Not this year. We've just had one long cold spell with only one little break where it was mild enough to thaw. We've had snow cover for 110 days. We have about 50 cm (20in.) of snow on the level. We've had high winds and blowing snow. Blowing snow here in the city is pretty rare.

       So I feel that the term "dog days of winter fits pretty well. I will apologize to dog owners ahead of time if they take offense to me using the term dog in a negative sense. We are all tired of the long cold spell and really look for a break when the forecaster said , "It's going to be a cold spring!" That's too much!

      Now I know I'm ranting and raving. I even changed my mind yesterday about posting such a rant on the weather. I had read a very positive uplifting blog post and for a short time it cheered me up.

    However, I know that spring is soon to appear and our snow will start to melt and all of this will seem like a bad memory. I promise to post about beautiful spring time conditions when they get here.