To the uninitiated, February 19 may not seem much different from January 19 in terms of the long slog through winter in Vermont.
But it is different! The signs are subtle. The light has already changed. Instead of darkness falling shortly after 4:00 p.m. as it does in December and between 4:25 p.m. in early January and 4:57 p.m. in late January, it is now setting around 5:35 p.m. and by the end of the month it will be setting at 5:45 p.m.
That daylight matters at the end of the day and in the mornings with dawn now breaking closer to 6:10 a.m. compared to 7:20 a.m. in December. Look around your house and you’ll see; the earth is tilting, and the sun is coming into different windows now.
It blinds you differently when you’re walking or driving. It has some heat. It warms your face. Late February smells different than December or January and March smells different again.
But beyond the longer days, the sky color is changing, and birds are more active. Robins are singing and that amazing and welcome pre-cursor to spring is starting to show - sap is moving. The snowbanks/wells around tree trunks are starting to peel back and recede. That means Town Meeting is around the corner, and it certainly is.
This week’s warmer temps and sunshine were a welcome respite from so much cold this winter and so much snow. Snow is never bad when you live in a ski community and what is on the slopes generates different emotions than what is on the deck and driveway and needing to be shoveled.
It warmed up enough this week to scrape through last week’s 14 inches of snow and get down to the previous ice layer on the deck, exposing it to sun. Small victories matter when winter is four-plus months long.
We will surely have more storms, and most likely temps will drop again, but probably not into prolonged stretches of sub-zero like we saw in December, January and this month. The sun will begin to melt the snowbanks and the rest of the ice on the deck. We’ll make it through once again.
Mud season awaits us, but so does spring skiing!
