Ahhh, spring. The most welcome change of seasons. Budding trees. Tulips popping up. The optimism of another Red Sox season. Bruins and Celtics playoffs. New spring novels.

Think against!

After a mild and temperate winter, spring came in like a wolf. Two violent and destructive storms blew in and threw my writing off course. The weather is definitely changing, creating more of these dangerous ice storms. This wintry mix is proving more lethal than most of the other times of storms we receive. The trees cake thick with ice. The added weight probably increases tenfold when this happens, creating dangerous conditions when the limbs can no longer support such weight.

And then there is the loss of power. I lost it for two days. Do you know how hard it is to write when your computer has no power and the internet is out? I don’t write longhand. In fact, without my computer or television, I actually had to grab a book off my shelf and read the old fashioned way. And I really enjoyed the experience.

The irony of the storm was that I had a tree come down across my driveway. My wife decided to park in the garage the night before the storm. When I came home, I asked her why she had done that. The storm would be a nothing burger, I said. It was one of the few times she had parked it inside. Wouldn’t you know, that tree came down exactly where she always parked. Our truck would have been totaled otherwise. Not only that, but the tree just missed destroying our garage. And the irony was that it was my neighbors tree that came down, and I had ten trees cut the summer prior.

On the plus side, Portland looked like a winter wonderland for two whole days. Me and the wife went out of our cold house and went for lunch and dinner and a Mariners hockey game. We had fun until we had to return to our freezing house.

Monday came and no power, which meant no writing would get done. I went to the gym where I forgot to shower. I was supposed to meet a friend for lunch and had to take a freezing cold Navy shower at home. Burrrrrrr!

That night the power returned. What a relief. Back to writing. And then two weeks later we get another spring storm. Although the wind was worse, at least we didn’t get the icy rain. And we didn’t lose power, which meant I had a cozy day at home writing and watching Buddy bake cakes.

Well, the snow is now melting and spring is finally here. I think we are out of the woods now. I do love spring, but in Maine it can often be the cruelest and most harshest of months. Mark Twain once said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” Well, Mr. Twain, come visit in Maine sometime in the spring.