When Your Brain Surrenders To Its Environment

I can gather little explanation for why I still love Western New York. I wouldn't trade living here for anything. And two feet of heavy, wet snow on the third day of April doesn't change my mind. I knew I had gone over the edge and surrendered to the Big Brother of the weather gods when I smiled at the trees bowing to the earth with their branches laden with snow. 2 plus 2 equals 5. Snow in April equals happiness. But the fact that it's supposed to get up to 70-degrees on Wednesday may be a factor in this.

The punishing winters we get, the gray days of late Autumn and early Spring; and the often sunless days of summer drive many away from this area, if not the taxes and job market alone. I don't dream of giving up. Perhaps it's those stretches of days full of clear, sunny skies like this morning. Or maybe it's the brilliant colors of blooming flowers in the Spring and Summer that give to the awesome changing foliage of Fall. And while some natural disasters like mountains of snow, ice storms, damaging winds, abundance of rain, and drought do threaten the land, we certainly don't miss the hurricanes, severe earthquakes, tornado alley, forest fires, and other weather ailments that our more prosperous cousins to the south and west experience.