The Better Chancery Practice Blog

Can it be? Daylight savings time (DST) already? That’s what my calendar says: Sunday, March 11, “Daylight Savings Time begins.” So, at 2:00 am on Sunday, if you haven’t set your clock ahead, erasing a precious hour of slumber, you will be late for church or any other activity you have planned that day.

Although it seems awfully early for DST, it seems awfully early for a lot of things this year. Daffodils started blooming here in east-central Mississippi ‘way back in January, as did the forsythias. We have had an indoor-outdoor hibiscus blooming since last month, as is my wife’s fecund lemon tree (lugged faithfully inside and then back outside with every approaching and passing cold front). The peach trees beside the house are awash in hot pink blooms. The trees are leafing out.

And if you need more convincing, here’s the first robin of spring …

Okay, he didn’t quite make it. Maybe he had a brief, spectacularly unsuccessful “Angry Birds” episode, or maybe he was distracted by a neighborhood cat. Whatever, his pilot error resulted in this fatal collision with one of my dining room windows and suspension in the now-punctured window screen.

So we skipped winter, and spring is here. The balmy days and nights will soon yield to the blast-furnace heat and sauna humidity of summer … perhaps as soon as next month, at the pace we have been going.

Oh, I’m sure we’ll yet have a spell of cold weather. Seems like we always do in April. I remember one April, around the 8th, when we had eleven inches of snow. The temperatures did skitter back into the 80’s a mere couple of days after our “Mississippi blizzard,” but nature had had its way, reminding us once again that it can be cold when it chooses to be.

We shouldn’t really complain about this early grace of pleasantry, I know. The temperatures are easy and the breezes are light (if pollen-filled). Still, I look down the calendar at August and September and wonder what these warm temperatures portend. It’s only natural when you have been through a calamity like August, 2005.

Stay tuned.