Coast to Coast Contrast

Coast to coast, there’s no end to talking about the weather. Today I read in my brother’s local newspaper The Nome Nugget  that Alaska suffers from too much warmth and too little snow. The start of the Iditarod got moved from Anchorage to Fairbanks for only the second time in its 43-year run (the ceremonial start in Anchorage will proceed as usual tomorrow, with the dog teams then being transported to Fairbanks for the official start on

Monday). Last year, many people and dogs crashed on downhill chutes in the Alaska Range that this year are even more treacherous.

The Iditarod ends in Nome where conditions for dog sledding are scarcely better. (http://nomenugget.net/)

Yin and yang, Vermont and Alaska. Or vice versa?

My Pacific Northwest correspondents report rhododendrons in bloom and butterflies on the wing a month early.

An “unseasonably” warm winter feels more wrong than a frigid winter. (I will not address consequences of extreme weather more serious than damage to the psyche.)

Number 43 cropped up this week here in Vermont too as weathermen exclaimed that Wednesday’s spike in temp broke a 43-day streak of below-freezing days.

The Full Worm Moon: If anyone sees earthworm castings, harbinger of the return of robins, please speak up. Alternate names are Full Crow Moon, Full Crust Moon, Full Sap Moon, and Full Lenten Moon.

Roger Hill quip of the week: “The maples are PRETTY sleepy.”

…Oops. While I wrote this post, The Nome Nugget changed its online photo from dog sledding to snowmobiling.