March Madness

I have always questioned the virtue of awarding an extra hour of evening daylight to March. I feel sure the month was as surprised to get the win as April was the loss. We are not quite prepared for the added benefit around here. It’s like having guests arrive early to the party while you’re rummaging in the closet for what to wear. And it strips poor April—saddled with high expectations for spring—of its one ace. If you ask me, an extra hour of sunshine at the end of the day to monitor the increasing dampness of mud season isn’t much of a payoff.

We are back to darkness when Huckleberry jumps off the bed for breakfast. I follow, cautiously, conscious that he is black as night and will be lurking near my slippers. If he had more wit about him, he would move out of the way. So my first steps of the day are noncommittal. I shuffle my feet until I bump into him, at which point I am able to spur him forward toward the kitchen, where we can get a light on.

The trouble doesn’t end there. In the warming temperatures, the yard and driveway are melting. After breakfast, Huck goes outside, trotting past the perimeter of porch light to sniff around the slippery field, and edge close to the awakening creek. One of us must be there with a towel when he returns.

It is the time of year when I wish we had a house in the desert. There won’t be much to do here for the next several weeks. Below four or five inches, the ground will be rock hard. I could be splitting wood, as smoke still curls from the chimney, but how much harm would it do to wait another month? We have oodles of dry kindling. More than anything, the driveway could use a break, giving it a chance to drain. The muddy tracks vehicles make will harden and remain until the plows return in winter to scrape them away.

Arizona would be nice or New Mexico. We were in Sedona, Arizona, ten years ago, around this time. Red rock country. A chance to awaken our prehistoric roots. We took a side trip to the Grand Canyon and hiked down the Bright Angel Trail for a stretch before retreating to the tour bus. I remember the clear nighttime skies offering brilliant views of the stars. Borrowing from the place we stayed, which had an amateur astronomer setup with a few telescopes every evening in the parking lot, we brought home the idea of stargazing events in the field behind the Hancock Inn (now The Inn at Hancock), which we owned at the time. It was a noble effort, but they don’t have cloud cover in Arizona—or mosquitoes. Around here, winter would be a better time to be outside stargazing (except travelers don’t feel it’s a better time to be in rural New Hampshire).

We’re not going to Arizona. Or Florida. Or the Caribbean. We will waken to our homesteading roots. There is too much brush to pile and wood to split and sand to sweep off the walkways as the snow retreats—assuming it retreats. Which is the other reason to stay nearby: it is a tricky time of year weather-wise. Another Nor’easter could develop, bringing dangerous winds and, at this point, heavy snow, snapping tree limbs, hitting wires, cutting power. Try as we might, we could not shrug off knowing winter had staged an encore while sitting poolside in the southwest with our umbrella drinks.

Under those circumstances, are we going to cheer swapping morning for evening light right now? Piffle. To what purpose? It has no affect on the birds or growing season. We get to watch the icicles melt.

Arizona, you know, eschews daylight saving time.

Published in the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, March 10, 2026