Someone Broke the Covenant.

   Here, in upstate New York, we have had an extremely mild Winter. I believe the whole northeast has, really. I have noticed that everywhere I have been, no one is talking about it. I have therefore come to believe that we residents of the area have an unspoken agreement to not discuss it. And if we break the agreement, Winter will come roaring her ugly, cold head down on us in all her snowy white glory.

   This past week, we had a snowstorm. Now, it wasn't as bad as it could have been, not nearly as bad. But this leads me to believe that perhaps someone has broken the agreement and discussed the forbidden topic.

   I, for one, have truly enjoyed this respite from true Winter weather. In years past, we have had to shovel a three foot wide path from the driveway to our door. It must be this wide, because with each successive snow storm, it of course gets deeper, and I insist on being able to walk through with a grocery bag in each hand.

   Many years, we have more than six feet of snow in total. Thankfully, some of it melts between storms, so it would rarely pile more than three feet at any one time. When our son was young, we used to make large snow sculptures in our front yard. We had a gorilla, a large shark complete with open mouth big enough for our son to sit in, and a variety of dinosaurs. I believe we started with an alligator.

   It was not unknown for the snow pile at the bottom of our driveway to still be there, however much smaller, in April, or even early May.

   Now it seems that someone has ruined it for all of us. And we were almost through the snow season. Hopefully, the rest of the Winter won't be so bad...