Photo Credit: © Can Stock Photo Inc. / Elenathewise (top left) / gunnar3000 (top right) / zurijeta (bottom right) / AnnaNouvier (bottom left)
gunnar3000 (top right) / zurijeta (bottom right) / AnnaNouvier (bottom left)
As the scent of the air changes with the approaching spring, I reflect on the drastically different seasons in Ohio and how much I value them. Even the abrupt changes that occur have a special place in my heart. I don’t think I could ever live in warm-weather states like Florida or the Carolinas, where the return to warm weather is always a day or two away.
Blanketed By Winter
I like enduring the extreme temperatures familiar to one season because the payoff is much richer in the end. I recall earlier this year, just after the holidays, temperatures in Cleveland during the first week of January were so unseasonably warm that my wife and I threw a family cookout the day before taking our youngest back to college after Christmas break. The next day, I drove through blizzard conditions to get him to school on time. It was about 60 degrees that Saturday and below 20 the next day. When I returned from the long drive, (turnpike was 30 mph), I keyed into the house, put some playoff football on the television, lit the fireplace, and crawled under a big comforter blanket until my wife woke me a few hours later for hot soup and freshly made bread from the oven. Winter had finally arrived, and I was so into it! Yes, it meant inconvenience and shoveling and scraping windows and all that, but there was no yard work, no push to “get outside in the fresh air,” no need to travel too far. It got dark early, the annoying air conditioner hum was several months away, and the lazy, well-rested gift of winter stood on exhibit on the other side of my windows.