It amazes me that with the modern technology that has been developed, we still rely on some furry rodent to project when our winter is going to conclude. Space stations hurtling through space, instant world wide commuinications, and doppler radar sites we still watch for a little furry beast to pop his head out of the ground. He did just that and instantly disappeared again, indicating that we still have six weeks of winter remaining.

I saw my shadow today, but even I know it is going to be much longer than six weeks before we see the end of this winter. My historically correct indicator, my log splitter, indicates that we have a minimum of ten weeks remaining of winter weather. In the past ten years, this is the first time that I have not been able to see the handle on my log splitter by this date. In fact, I do not even know where my log splitter is at! Somewhere under all that snow.

I would prefer to use the birds as an indicator as to how close we are to spring. In our feeding areas, we are still seeing hundreds of birds feeding on sunflower seeds however, the gross beaks have failed to show. They are normally the last of the bird species to start feeding in this area. On typical years, they start feeding heavily 31.4 days prior to the arrival of spring. However, over the past two days I have seen a bird indicator that is a little early. The American Bald Eagle are starting to show in the river valley. They normally do not show up until the rivers begin to break open in hopes of catching an early salmon. Perhaps they know something we do not or they are looking for a furry rodent to eat.

You can rely on the ground pig, for me I am going to trust the birds and my calendar, I will predict that on the Ides of April, spring will be here.