We are about a month from spring, or the vernal equinox; it occurs this year on March 19. Some people might have thought that we would have an early spring. Our winter has been somewhat of a mild one, with little or no ice on the river and some ice on the lakes; for most of the time, the ice on the lakes has been too thin to be safe for ice fishing.

Mother Nature always seems to have a late-winter or early-spring surprise for us; it seems we have had significant snow events or blizzards as we are waiting for the first signs of spring to appear. Indeed, a couple of days after I saw a turkey vulture soaring above Shohola (I usually don’t see them here until the beginning of March), we had a mid-February snowstorm that gave us eight to 14 inches, depending on location. I heard through social media that some places, like Narrowsburg, NY, got little accumulation at all. 

This past Saturday, we had another snow event but had only two inches, a fraction of what we got during the early part of the week. This time, areas to the south got more snow than Pike, Wayne or Sullivan counties. It made a little bit of a mess on the roads, but the snow ended in the morning and road crews got it cleaned up early. 

On Saturday mornings, I volunteer at GAIT Equine Services on Foster Hill Road in Milford, PA, helping out with classes; this week’s “après snow” images are early-morning shots from the Milford area.