Leelanau Sees Sun

It's Easter Sunday and it finally stopped snowing. The April sun is strong, so strong that it was melting the snow even before the clouds really cleared. Anyone with doubts about passive solar heating needs only to park their car facing south and check the temperature in the front seat about 2 pm.

It was never a real blizzard, but it was close enough to scare me a little. Driving home, I had to creep along following the tracks before me in order to stay on the road. In a real blizzard, you have to do the same thing, only you're doing it while you walk from the garage to the house, hoping that you're following the right tracks. When I lived through the big Buffalo blizzard in 1977, I walked home a few times, just finding the sidewalks by following others' footsteps. The odd part was when I came to a corner. I would have to scrape some snow off of the corner building, study the brick pattern, then try to remember which building had that sort of brick so that I could figure out where I was.

In Leelanau, the snow comes faster as the wind calms down. Thus the snow squalls of yesterday were stronger than during the blizzard warning of Wednesday. Today there is actual Sunshine and things are melting fast. Through it all, the birds have been remarkably active. The juncos were digging hoes through the snow to get the green grass underneath. The robins flocked to the road shoulders and other open areas, perhaps just hoping for a worm to show up. We bought suet cakes yesterday, but now that the wind is down and the sun is out the yard is deserted except for two juncos.

The TV news tells us that Painesdale, Grampa Gord's boyhood home, got over 50 inches of snow this week.