We’ve reached that precarious season in time here in
Florida, in which on any given day you may see people in gigantic tick-filled
coats and woolen scarves lining their necks or cargo shorts and flip flops;
depending on which way the wind is blowing.
People are catching colds as fast as the temperature’s rage out of control, a high of 45 degrees one day and high of 69 degrees the next; both with lows of 25 degrees. Keeping up with the temperature is your mainstay morning television viewing; we all get dressed according to the national weather channel, and watch again in the evening so you know whether or not to drip the faucets all night to prevent frozen, bursting pipes.
Or the days that you decide about noon it would have been the perfect day for fishing. Well yeah, it would have been had it not been 40 degrees at 8am and the wind was blowing at 20 mph; because you know February and March are built for wind, cold, and a lot of bright sunshine to fool you when you’re on the inside looking out. But out on that water, with that wind whipping; sunshiny and 65 degrees or not, that wind will freeze you to death and chap your skin like nobody’s business. And there is nothing that hurts as bad as a wind-burn besides a severe sunburn. First step into the shower, and that hot water lets your skin know you spent too much time in whichever element was going on that day.
This is also the time of the year that baseball and softball is back in season. Our youngest son played baseball when he was in school and I can remember we started off semi-warm while the sun was still up, but the time change was still not in effect, so by 6:30pm we were dragging out the blankets and bundling up for the final innings. Hitting the concession stands for coffee and hot chocolate and I’ll be honest with you, praying for quick innings and even quicker results!
People are catching colds as fast as the temperature’s rage out of control, a high of 45 degrees one day and high of 69 degrees the next; both with lows of 25 degrees. Keeping up with the temperature is your mainstay morning television viewing; we all get dressed according to the national weather channel, and watch again in the evening so you know whether or not to drip the faucets all night to prevent frozen, bursting pipes.
Or the days that you decide about noon it would have been the perfect day for fishing. Well yeah, it would have been had it not been 40 degrees at 8am and the wind was blowing at 20 mph; because you know February and March are built for wind, cold, and a lot of bright sunshine to fool you when you’re on the inside looking out. But out on that water, with that wind whipping; sunshiny and 65 degrees or not, that wind will freeze you to death and chap your skin like nobody’s business. And there is nothing that hurts as bad as a wind-burn besides a severe sunburn. First step into the shower, and that hot water lets your skin know you spent too much time in whichever element was going on that day.
This is also the time of the year that baseball and softball is back in season. Our youngest son played baseball when he was in school and I can remember we started off semi-warm while the sun was still up, but the time change was still not in effect, so by 6:30pm we were dragging out the blankets and bundling up for the final innings. Hitting the concession stands for coffee and hot chocolate and I’ll be honest with you, praying for quick innings and even quicker results!
On the warmer weekends, especially as it gets closer to March, Lowes and Home Depot will have all those pretty flowers stacked-up out front, all the colors of the rainbow and what everybody has been craving to see since the last frost killed everything off. You can always recognize what I call the “newbies”, the ones who have never actually planted flowers or had the job of taking care of baskets and pots before. They’re all excited, filling up their carts with little pots of pretties, not knowing, bless their hearts, that there will be more freezes to come and those blooms won’t stand a chance against the rest of those cold March winds that are surely still a’coming.
Spring will be here soon enough folks, and then, before long, summer. It seems we’re always wishing for what we don’t have, in weather and in life. It took me fifty-one years to figure out that life happens all in due time, always.
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