Last night's snow really caught me by surprise! The mild weather we've been having made me think we were done with the white stuff, but my memory is short. The 2020 April storm should have made me a little less hopeful. Actually there were two storms in April last year leaving over 250,000 customers without electricity. I should have known. Spring is just a figure of speech here in Maine.

So the tires have all been changed out on cars. Maybe we have too much time on our hands now with our isolation, hoping for better weather sooner so we can shake our frumps. But that's not the reason the tractor wouldn't start. That was because I had not installed the new battery. I figured it would make more sense to wait until warmer weather so the Kubota wouldn't sit idle for long stretches. That was pretty forward thinking. Heavy snow is much more easily moved with machinery than with shovel. Anyway, my shovel was broken (dry rot) and had been placed on injured reserve for the season. Next winter would be a good time for a replacement.

Plowing trucks got caught off guard, too. In the depths of winter, often, pickups everywhere mount their plows in anticipation of the next plowable event. Such was not so during our recent storm. Pickups flying from driveway to driveway, some with warning lights flashing, many with sidekick and coffee at the ready, were absent from area roads.

Snows that hit us this time of year often melt away quickly, or are rained away. The weather systems are in turmoil. We never quite know if the storm will come from the Northwest out of Canada, the Northeast off the ocean or all wet and nasty from the South. It’s pretty safe to expect the snow to hang up in the trees, often breaking limbs and sometimes felling trees completely, root balls in tact. At our house the white pines break with shotgun alerts, aggravated by swirling winds and high velocity puffs. Morning after surveys usually result in significant cleanup.

April 1 is a special day. I hope I haven't been too foolish.