Well, maybe under all the ice!

Spring would be nice, but at this point I'd settle for normal Jan. temperatures.

We'll know better next week when Punxatawny Phil makes his appearance.

Nope.

Tree pollen has been really heavy here for a couple of weeks, so spring is not far off!

Six and a half more weeks, I believe. Then spring will have sprung.

I saw some daffodils emerging from the ground in a sheltered spot last week. Of course they are in a deep freeze right now.

I noticed that it's still light after 5 pm, and saw that cardinal this morning. I'd like to believe it....

Doesn't the rodent look for his shadow this week?

Spring's not all it's cracked up to be -

horrific pollen counts and oh yes, still no local produce.

Historically in Europe, Spring often had negative connotations as food stores from the winter were running out and the early summer harvest was still weeks/months away.

OK, THAT'S depressing. EL

The farmer's almanac is predicting snowy weather for the mid-atlantic during Feb. 8-15. We shall see how accurate it is. I am not looking forward to the longer days of summer. I like the dark days of winter.

Right, bryanintimonium. Spring was the dangerous time. You couldn't travel, due to mud and all that lovely slippery snow melting (winter was the travel season), you were running out of your food stocks or were out, plus you had to start heavy manual labour in the fields.

Spring is deadly. Plus the bugs come out.

I thought Baltimore didn't have a spring, we called it "pothole season".

RiE,
Down here, they have a groundhog named General Beauregard Lee that does the forecasting from someplace just north of Atlanta, Stone Mountain I believe. I guess the South wants their own prognosticator.

Bucky,
Does the West have their own groundhog forecast spring's arrival?

Rob - In Colorado we have only two seasons--winter and the third week of July.

Bucky exaggerates a bit. I lived in Denver for 10 years - okay, not an expert - but in my experience winter was certainly the longest season (great if you like to ski - I did!) and there was usually more snow in April than any other month, thus pushing spring into summer, which was short. But autumn was lovely. I miss driving up to the mountains to see the Aspens turn golden.

I also miss the heavy snow in Denver which was so much easier to navigate than this "wintry mix" in Baltimore! But I love Baltimore for many other reasons. (Crabs! But not the soft-shelled kind - ick).

OK, just because we are friends here, I'm going to tell y'all the secret.

SmartWool socks. The heavyweight ones.

Dining@Large: The only blog you'll ever need, even to survive winter.

I tolerate heat very well and cold, not so much. So, I look very forward to spring. But, to be honest, I think MD spring, aside from the flowers blooming, is kind of a bust as a true season. I mean it kind of goes from snow to summer weather pretty quickly here without a lot of that "springy" type weather in between. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. My son tells me 2 more storms are being heralded by the weather vultures. Must go look at Expedia. Plastic wearing a hole in my wallet....

Years ago my husband had a sabbatical in Massachusetts. We arrived at the beginning of January to a very heavy snowfall. Our older son built a snow fort on the deck. That fort was still there in April. I am not exaggerating!

March 1. My official start to spring. Only 30 more days. Away go the winter clothes out come the flip flops.

When you get a long spring (like in Massachusetts), you get the fifth season, mud. You think driving on ice is bad, try a thin layer of very watery mud on top of hard pack mud.

(I'm off to Western PA today, to see some real snow.)

Carol is right. Denver has four seasons. Denver is actually in the plains, not the mountains, and has a semi-arid climate.

I've actually been snowed on in every single month of the year, but the summer snows were in the mountains. And the summer snow storms left as quickly as they came.

We do not, however, have ice storms which are exceedingly more disruptive than snow storms, in my experience. So I feel for y'all.

Does the West have their own groundhog forecast spring's arrival?

Silly FL Rob! In the West the shoot groundhogs!

I don't condone shooting prairie dogs (the western version of a groundhog) for sport.

Bucky, if you're looking for sport of a different flavor, there's a comment for you on the Mommy blog. My feeling that "life's too short" compelled me to bail out of that conversation but I am following all of your gentle retorts with interest and extreme prejudice.

Bucky

The western equivalent of the groundhog is the marmot. A darker coat I believe.

Laura Lee - I might have found Springs3, what do you think?

I think I'll bail on that one too. I said my piece. But thanks for calling it to my attention. I don't always frequent that particular blog. (I can't remember now what attracted me there that time...once in a while I see something in the "Recent Posts" thing on the top of blog central that catches my eye.)

Bucky& Laura Lee.
Me too.

Bucky,
I almost responded to HP but I was afraid of being sucked into a vortex of acrimony a la Springs1.

We can thank Bucky for sparing us all!

LEC - Indeed, marmots. I forgot about marmots (which we always called whistle pigs, because of their call.) Now that you point it out, I see that's the western groundhog.

Prairie dogs are smaller and their fur isn't as long.

RayRay - although **except for** all the astericks, Hadley is much more readable.

Bucky, RayRay, LL,

Always curious, I visited that blog. Does it get a nickname, like Playpen, Highchair, or Diaper Pail? No disrespect to Kate however.

But HP's posts caused my eyes to glaze over. Just a bit.

And I always heard that groundhogs, marmots, and prairie dogs were the same critter, just different names.

Joyce W., don't marmots come out of the sky in some old Yes song?

PCB Rob, I don't follow the Mommy blog closely enough to know if it has a nickname. They seem to be a rather ernest bunch; I think Dahlink is over there more regularly. In fact, that's why I stumbled on that particular post- I saw Dahlink's comment.

Rob - Marmot, Prairie Dog and Groundhog.

In the Dakotas, I'm told, they call pairie dogs whistle pigs.
Ground whistling prairie marmot pigdogs.
Wonder how they taste.

jl wrote: Wonder how they taste.

When in doubt ...

By the way, jl, what happened to Shallow Thought Wednesday the last couple of weeks?

Hal - I'm beginning to wonder if you know me! That was indeed one of my best songs to mess up. Right up there with "there's a bathroom on the right"!

Carey-"out come the flip flops"? My son wore his out in the snow/ice yesterday (much to my dismay!)

Bucky will have to do the math, but I think this is the shortest post from Lady Elizabeth with the most comments. On that criteria it probably belongs in the 100's hall of fame.

Now, on weather: 15 February. This is the important date for which to hope and pray. Here's why: from 1 January to 15 February any snow or wintery mix we get will be on the ground and cause problems until the middle of February. After that point we don't have sustained cold weather. So, that's the end of winter. This is not to say we can't and don't get significant snows after 15 February. But, usually within a couple of days of such a storm the temperatures will jump into the 50's or higher and the White Death (now an ugly shade of gray) melts away.

Bucky, Laura Lee & RayRay - someone get that woman a life!

The Mommy Blog is very earnest. When I first started reading Sun blogs, one of the Boys was with me several evenings a week. Kate was posting what I assumed were kid-type meals. (Turns out, I wouldn't touch stuff that looked like that, much less ask a beloved grandchild to do so.) I was, frankly, driven away by the constant whining that went on over there, which is how I wound up here. The Sandbox has some odd characterisitics but whining is not usually one of them.

The Mommies seem to have outgrown their whining.

Is it possible that jl has run out of Shallow Thoughts? Are all of his thoughts now deep and ponderous? Will this new depth require the nourishment of creamed corn?

I once saw a cartoon where one critter asked another, "Who decides who gets to be the chicken?"

Blurg.

I think OMG's comment describes the taste of ground hog.

In my youth, as a boy scout attending a BSA camp in New Hampshire, I had the opportunity(?) to try the critter. One of the counselors on an overnight hike/campout somehow came into possession of a groundhog, I don't remember whether by snare, trap or arrow.

Anyway he gutted it and skinned it and then cooked it over the campfire. He offered the 30 or so scouts in the group a taste. I was one of the few adventurous ones taking the offering. Until today I have always described it as the best piece of burnt rubber I have ever tasted.

Now I'll just say "Blurg!!"

The HP drinking game...Take a shot every time the word inference is used...