We don't need a woodchuck in Pennsylvania to tell us that there will be six more weeks of winter. Just go outside for more than a few minutes and you'll know, It's cold out there. The leaves on my rhododendrons are curled up so tight they look more like needles than leaves. The snow is one thing, but the extreme cold has been the real problem. Even people who like to go outside and play in the snow are finding it difficult with the cold. 

Skiing, snowmobiling, skating or sledding, if you’re not layered and bundled up, you'll be frozen in no time at all. My mom down in southwest Florida has been seeing a lot of cold weather too. Last weekend they had Gulf Effect Snow in Fort Myers, and it has been so cold it is raining iguanas. Yes, iguanas. The weather has been so cold down there that the cold-blooded lizards are so cold they are freezing up and falling from the trees. Imagine taking your dog for a walk in the morning and being hit in the head by an iguana falling from the trees above. We have to worry about ice chunks or snow from overhead trees, Floridians have to worry about iguanas. 

Last January when I was in Florida, Fort Myers got down to thirty-eight degrees one night, which was the coldest temperature recorded in almost seventy years. This year that temperature has been broken many times with some areas getting down to twenty-nine degrees, breaking all previous records. Winter storm Fern that dumped up to eighteen inches around here, brought one, to one and a half inches of ice to parts of Tennessee. And some areas of the state are still without power two weeks later as the ice has not been able to melt because it has remained so cold. Country music artist John Rich put out a song on “X,” “Global Warming is freezing us to death,” from his frozen front yard in Nashville, Tennessee. He dedicated the song to Al Gore, the godfather of the global warming movement. 

If the polar ice caps are melting, they seem to be refreezing over us this winter. Tugboats on the Hudson River are required to get the ferries back and forth from NYC to Staten Island and New Jersey because of the ice on the river. The Delaware River has frozen solid and could cause problems when spring does hit, as when the ice breaks up it can form ice jams on the river causing flooding in certain areas. It hasn't happened in many years, but since we have so many new residents since Covid in our area, let your neighbors know what could happen in the spring if you are a seasoned riverbank homeowner. It will probably be a month or more yet before the river ice starts to break up, but when it does it usually goes fast. Normally in early February, maple syrup producers would start getting ready to tap trees to collect sap, but with the constant cold weather, that is on hold right now. The snow cover will help the sap yield this spring when the weather warms up enough for the sap to run. For a good sap run, you need days that get above freezing, usually in the forties and nights that get back down below freezing. That is not happening any time soon. Even so, my wife started to get her taps and buckets ready. Now she will just need some snowshoes to be able to walk through our backyard so that she can tap her trees. 

Getting back to that woodchuck from Pennsylvania, he said six more weeks of winter. Well, the Vernal Equinox (the first day of spring) is March 20, which is about six weeks away. So spring is coming, the days are getting longer, and it will warm up eventually. Until then, stay warm and bundled up because this winter isn't over yet.