Sorry Punxsutawney Phil and your shadow. It is time for you to take a hike after all these years of so-so forecasting spring's arrival! Over the past few years here in the Tallwood neighborhood, we at our home have a much more reliable predictor of spring! Fredie Flamingo, who as a Ph.D. climatologist is always 100% correct in telling us exactly when spring arrives. He has a perfect positive correlation coefficient of 1.0 for all predictions!

Since I'm not authorized to reveal the names responsible for Fredie, his partner, Francine Flamingo, and their family that keep returning to our home spring after spring, I can say they are great neighbors with her name starting with an "E" and his with an "R" followed by the vowel "E" for the last name. Seems they were looking for a new kind of pet to make a home for, but not a puppy, cat, or gerbils. They both decided that a pair of pink flamingos would be perfect for E's beautiful gardens.

Now in my day if I wished to find a flamingo breeder, I would simply look in the Yellow Pages of our telephone book. Find the number, lift the phone's receiver from its cradle to hear a pleasant voice asking, "number, please" or as I became a teenager, using my index finger to dial the number. In both cases I would end up talking with a human being who I could understand and had the intellectual capacity to both answer and ask relevant questions. Not so in today's world of addictive electronic wizardry! You can get one of these challenging fake AI geeks who at best has a limited capacity to satisfactorily answer whatever you're seeking. The alternative is to remove your "smartie" from your rear pocket and start frantically thumbing a message. A word of medical caution for again I'm not at liberty to reveal my source of information for there is now quietly training a subset of docs for a new abnormality to be called "Thumbitis" Much more painful than carpal tunnel syndrome! Once the order info is given, a mere tap on the screen seals the deal.

As in our neighbor's case the final tap was misread and their nonrefundable order was on its way. One of those express box delivery trucks that we constantly see roaming our streets pulled up to their home with not just a pair of pink flamingos, but a whole truck load. They knew the Boothbay code enforcement officer would have poignant remarks. So being the civic, community supportive couple that they are, a plan to share was put in place. Not wanting to disturb thy neighbor's privacy, they waited till the wee hours of the morning to load up two of those monster two-wheel wheelbarrows, the type you see outside of our beloved Grover's, and, with stealth like precision, spreading joy with flocks of flamingos throughout the Tallwood neighborhood. Please do not associate their actions with the rascals of yesteryear who would flock someone's yard in order to raise money for a local charity. Their intent was truly altruistic.

Now back to Dr. Fredie and his prediction. You will see by the picture he is standing in the snow by the sign which reads "Flamingo Way" where the rest of the family is in my wife's upper garden. He wants us to never mind these spring dustings of 3 to 5 inches of heavy, wet, messy snow for it brings joy to our farmers, for they call it "Poor Man's Fertilizer" giving nitrogen back into the soil.

Time for his never wrong prediction for spring to arrive, regardless of what the "Shadow" or the calendar says, in his immortal words and I quote: (drum roll, please!) "Spring will arrive when it stops snowing!” How very perspective!

Let's hope the snow is over and the crocus and daffodils shall come forth!