The Geese are on the Move!

Every year I look and listen for the geese as they make their yearly migrations. It gives me a fair idea about the coming weather.

Last year they headed South rather early. I heard and saw flocks of them making their way to their wintering grounds during September. I knew that this winter was going to be cold!

The geese were right. We had an early winter and it was cold.

We had our first serious snowfall just before Thanksgiving, which in recent years, is early for the Nebraska area. We've had snow on the ground ever since, which again, is unusual.

Every year I listen to the people around me complain about "how cold it is", "this winter is worse than the last one", etc. I nod my head and agree. What's really going on inside of me is "you don't know what really bad weather is." When you have lived with snow on the ground for 6+ months out of the year and temperatures that range from -30 degrees to 20+ degrees as part of your normal winter weather, 32 or 40 degrees is a real treat.

I'm laughing on the inside because the people around me are used to winter weather that snows really hard one week and the next week it is all melted. I've noticed this trend in the area where I live. One week we'll have snow and freezing weather and then the next week it is 'normally' melted.

This year has been the first in 9 years that we've had winter weather consistently from November to February. That's still only 4 months compared to the 6 months that I grew up with. It's all relative. I've kind of got side tracked. Why am I talking about all this winter weather?

Oh yeah, the geese are returning. I've been watching large flocks of geese headed North for about two weeks now. What does this mean? Spring is on it's way! We will be having an early Spring.

The last three days have been absolutely beautiful! Yesterday, the temperatures were in the low 50's and almost all of the snow has melted. We may have one more snowfall, we usually do mid-March, but for all intents and purposes those Spring-time plans are now on the front burner.

This also means we will more than likely have a hot, long summer. O.K. everyone get your shades out and find the sun screen