False Spring

When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest.
The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

I have always been one to enjoy first times. I enjoy seeing a new species of bird or animal for the first time. I savor new sights and sometimes sounds.

This year I experienced a couple of occurrences for the first time that maybe I would have preferred to wait.

This past February while winter was still on the calender, I suffered my first tick bite ever in February and my first mosquito bites. I could understand if I was vacationing someplace like the Florida Everglades or in the Cloud Forests of Costa Rica, But bug bites during the last Winter weeks in Connecticut seriously bugs me.

During the first week of spring we enjoyed some beautiful record setting warm, if not hot temperatures, that woke up the creatures that slept through the winter. The sound of frogs filled the nights, insects fluttered about. Turtles basked in the sunlight, and we broke out the shorts.

As the temperatures climbed during the day, I brought out Custard, Pudding, and the Dude, our 3 Sulcata Tortoises so that they could absorb some of the warm sunshine.


It also gave us time to start some warmer weather projects outside, but the reality of living in New England will return tonight, when temperatures drop down to somewhere in the 20s.

We enjoyed our brief bought of Spring, and look forward to its return. But for tonight we will throw some logs on the fire and hope that Jeanne's prediction of snow in April is something we will not see.