Friday!
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group is for us to check in at to let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, or other such things that could keep us off DKos. It's also so we can find other Kossacks nearby for in-person checks when other methods of communication fail - a buddy system. Members come here to check in. If you're not here, or anywhere else on DKos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, etc.), we and your buddy are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care!
If you'd like to be part of the Itzl Alert Network, please leave a comment asking to join, or send us a message asking to join. We'd love to have you. The bigger our network, the less likely someone will be stranded all alone.
Hard to believe Spring is already half over!
And before you go talking about snow and ice and cold weather - Spring is not a matter of temperature, but of axial tilt.
The Equinoxes occur in the middle of Spring/Fall, just as the Solstices occur in the middle of Winter/Summer. The days halfway between the Equinoxes and Solstices are the dates when the seasons officially begin. So, Spring actually began February 2, and Summer will begin May 1.
It annoys me that our meteorologists - who should know better, they've presumably studied weather, science, and the effects of the Earth's axial tilt! - keep saying the midpoint of a season is the "beginning" of it.
It's hard to believe that people who didn't have the technological advantages we do got it right.
Yes, I know we still get snow, ice, and cold weather - and we can get those clear up until mid-May (the latest date we had a frost in Oklahoma that I recall was May 16th). Climate is different from the seasons, and with climate all over the place, we can't rely on it as a season indicator. A planting indicator, yes, but not a seasonal one. That axial tilt is still there, still rotating us through the seasons.
The coldest part of Spring and Summer are the first half of the season, so we expect to still get wintry weather the 1st 6 weeks of Spring. But we can see that the days are getting longer, and there are warm spells between the cold. The second 6 weeks of Spring things begin to sprout above ground.
My redbuds are blooming - something they do every year in mid-spring.