Lions And Lambs

March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.

This old adage sums up the changeable weather of late winter and early spring. During my childhood years in Michigan, I remember the cold, still-snowing lion days mixing back and forth with the fresh blue skies of the warm lamb weather, and often we would seesaw back and forth between the seasons several times over the course of the month.

But here in the Pacific Northwest, things are a bit different.

Here, the varying weather does not alternate from week to week or even day to day.

Winter and spring mix themselves seamlessly together. The heavy, dark clouds roll by overhead, full of chilly rain and tossed about by icy breezes while the cherry trees and forsythia burst forth below in fragile, pastel blossoms.

This mixed-up, in-between season will likely carry on for the rest of the month, and we PNWers can only smile at the incongruity as we brush the morning frost off our blooming daffodils and run for cover when the hail beats down on the hyacinth.

March may come in like a lion and leave like a lamb in some climates, but here in my little corner of the world, this is the month when the lion and the lamb lie down together.

The lion-hearted temperatures may have been about 45 F/ 7 C during our walk yesterday, 

but my fully recuperated lamb, Ranger enjoyed himself all the same.