When I was a kid I always felt like winter was half way over at Christmas.  I know.  It is not.  But that’s the way I felt back then, a million years ago and light years away from this winter.  Oh yes, by Christmas you were half way home, you only had to get through January, then it was February and February was short, right?  And then it was March and everyone knows that March is spring!  Sure it might snow a couple of times, but the sun shone and the snow melted and you got days and days of warmth creeping back into your bones.

Right.

The record snowfall in our area of Michigan is 93.6 inches set in 1881.   No one around today would remember that snowy winter, and no one back then would be commuting to work in bumper to bumper traffic on a freeway in all that snow.  No, this winter, though it will probably end up being the second snowiest winter, is plenty winter enough for me.  People seem to hope  we break the record – we’re only ten inches away now at 83.7 inches (that’s 212.60 centimeters for those of you outside the US).  Wouldn’t that be cool, people say.

What I say is that 83.7 inches is plenty enough of a record for me.  It’s the most snow we’ve had here in my lifetime and  I don’t need to experience ten more inches of snow this winter.  In fact I’d be fine if this last snowfall, this last four or five inches received on Saturday night was it.  Done.  Finished.  No more.  No way.  No how.  I’m hoping that I’ve put the snowblower away for the last time this year, felt the last of the cold wet stuff fall down my neck in the middle of the night when I’m out with Katie, shoveled my last chunk of ice away from the mailbox.  That’s what I’m hoping.

Even Katie thinks this is enough snow.  It’s higher than she is tall.  She can’t play in it, won’t squat in it, can’t chase a squirrel across it.  There is no reason that either of us can think of to keep it around.  So if it’s OK with all of you, we’d like to request that it begin to melt, slowly, starting tomorrow.

Cause somewhere under all this are little buds of green things just waiting to show us their stuff, there are little peepers waiting to sing and fish waiting to be caught.  Somewhere under all of this is spring, and it can’t get here soon enough to satisfy me.

How about you?