Ice Out!

I live on the Charles River. The more rural headwaters end.  The river is as reliable an indicator of the trending weather as any.

And Monday 16 March...

Ice Out! See it? The bend in the river? That's not shadow, that's open water!
And the open water is expanding almost before your eyes.

Boston broke its official all time snowfall record last night at 7:00 pm. Keep in mind that's at the airport, on the harbor. Where it often rains when it snows here. I think we broke our record a couple of weeks ago. Of course we know about snow. But the more striking thing is almost *all* of that snow fell in the past 6 weeks. Up until almost the first of February we hadn't had more than a few inches. So we all got dumped on pretty good and we felt it!

"Meteorological spring" is 1 March. The sunshine is much brighter and takes some of the harshness out of the cold. The more official "astronomical spring" is this Friday. The 20th. At 6:46 pm. Either way...good riddance, winter. Don't hurry back!

I keep pretty close track of when the swallows arrive and depart. And I'm pretty good about noting when the flowers blossom. I need to keep better track of when the river freezes solid and when the ice clears.

And when L sheds. She's easy! She doesn't gradually shed her coat like most other horses. She loses barely a hair here and there and then one day, poof! Hair everywhere! And the next day she finishes. I haven't kept track of that day's date. I'll have to start this year.

Hopefully we'll enjoy a ride in a few more days. The huge snowbanks will be here for quite a while but the blanket snow is melting very quickly!