At long last, the end of winter . . . On March 20 we observe the first day of
spring with the vernal equinox–one of two days in the year in which night and day are of equal duration (we have a mirror autumnal equinox in the fall, of course).
Why the fancy with astronomy? Dunno. I couldn’t think of anything else to post, so I idly glanced at the calendar on the wall in the computer room and there it was. So I typed in a key word search, checked out the topic at Wikipedia, and voici.
You can click here to see a cool QuickTime movie about the equinox phenomenon that I found on the web in my exploration.
What else could I add about spring? I think it’s my favorite season in this part of the world. Spring and autumn are supposed to be mirror seasons, but fall on the Gulf Coast feels more like left-over summer (Indian Summer, we call it–and it’s nasty!) while spring on the Gulf Coast feels more like left-over winter. Since our winters are milder than our brutal summers, the left-over winter is considerably more moderate. Plus, all the budding plants and trees turn that incomparable shade of spring-green.
So spring it is. And that’s OK with me. May it last throughout the summer.
