Mack truck

In another sign of spring’s imminent arrival, tonight I went to the post office around 7:00, and it was still light out. Of course, this is a direct result of this weekend’s time change: an artificial more than natural way to spring forward. But considering that during the dark days of November and December, it was dark when I left home to teach classes at 8:00am and dark when I returned from campus at 6:00pm, seeing the sun past dinner time is a milestone only other New Englanders like Theriomorph and Leslee can fully appreciate.

Now that it’s March, we take our signs of spring whenever and however we can find them. According to the academic calendar, this so-called “Spring Semester” began in January, when things here in New England were anything but springy. And yet now that the semester has reached its halfway point, I arrived back in Keene this afternoon to find my driveway mostly free from the ice and hard-packed snow that has covered it for the past month or so, after several snowfalls and day-long doses of wintry mix had left it treacherously (and seemingly perpetually) slick.

Busting out all over

It will be weeks (if not a month or more) before I see my yard again, as it’s still covered with a foot or so of snow, and the nights in New Hampshire are still freezing and sometimes snowy. But next week is Spring Break at Keene State, and this year the timing seems apt. We’re not yet out of the winter woods–we’ll probably see at least one more snowstorm before spring arrives For Real–but we’ve definitely turned a corner toward Almost Over. When you know spring is lurking not too long in the distant future, it’s that much easier to keep on truckin’ through the remaining days between “in like a lion” and “out like a lamb.”

Don’t be fooled: I shot today’s pictures in Newton, where the ground is bare and things like frost-blasted grass and weather-worn planters have emerged from the snow cover. Who knows what I’ll find in my yard here in Keene once the spring thaw that’s already happened in the Boston suburbs makes its way up to southwest New Hampshire.