It's about time spring quits lollygagging and gets here already.
Once February ends I have an expectation that the snow should disappear. It should realize it has once again overstayed its welcome and should leave us be until next winter.
One time of the year I always look forward to is springing forward the clocks. That doesn't happen here. I know it's just a mental thing, but every year when the clocks go back to where they belong, it seems like spring is showing up much faster than it did just a couple of days before the time change.
In a way I miss changing my clock. The clocks changed everywhere else in North America last weekend, turning March 13 into a 23-hour day.
There is something about having the days instantly appear longer that I missed this year. One day the sun sets at 6:30, the next at 7:30. It makes you want to get outside and enjoy that extra hour of sunlight that you didn't have just the day before.
Of course the sun doesn't actually hang in the sky an hour longer, it simply doesn't rise as early.
As something of a nighthawk, I'm good with that. I don't need the sun in the morning. I'm not a morning person and feel the solar cycle should share in my dislike of mornings by remaining appropriately dim.
In a strange way I feel as though I'm missing out on one of the fundamental signs of the next coming season, which is perhaps my favourite as long as the rain is kept in check.
The only downside of the time change was losing an hour of sleep once a year, but you always knew your good karma for sacrificing that hour would come back around and you'd get the hour back for one glorious night in November when the clocks would fall back.
The time change is just one of the many mental cues that I've developed over the years to signal the end of winter and the start of fine weather. These cues are important because they let me know I need things, like a new set of golf clubs. My clubs remains in Ontario and weren't included in the move, mostly because of space restrictions.
I will have to develop some new cues seeing as how I'm sticking with Saskatchewan for the long haul. Maybe I just need to buy a calendar.
No matter what province you're in, the spring equinox is this weekend. Weather, or temperature permitting, I like to enjoy mine on a deck with a cold drink.
