On Sat, 21 Jan 2006 22:14:53 -0600, Victor Martinez
wrote:

What is going on with the weather worldwide? While Russia suffers the
coldest winter in decades, we are having an early spring here in central
Texas. Trees are blooming, birds are singing, people are wearing
shorts... what the heck is going on?

It's been weird here in South Central Missouri as well. That's good
and bad. The bad is partly the lack of snow, or even rain, and partly
that the moles are very active in the relatively moist topsoil - my
back yard looked like it had been plowed, and was as hard to walk on
as plowed ground. Another good thing is that it stayed warm enough to
roll the yard for the week it took to get my tractor running (bad
battery). I rolled it yesterday - this confused the cats as much as a
covering of snow would have: they couldn't find the mole tunnels they
had been using as good places to bury their droppings

The cats are not shedding their winter coats, so there may still be
some severe cold in the future.

As for shorts, I have seen people wearing shorts outside even when the
temperature was below freezing and the wind was howling ... of course,
these people were all college students. Actually all male college
students - the women are not even wearing skirts, just long trousers.


--
T.E.D. )