During a recent email exchange with a friend of mine at the Maine Department of Tourism, I mentioned that perhaps it’s time to start marketing The Pine Tree State as the “garden spot” of the nation.

I was only half-kidding.

Whether you call it global warming, global climate change, or my new personal favorite overheard recently on satellite radio talk show, “global weirding,” the weather patterns around the country — and now that I think about it the whole world — this winter have been strange, baffling, and more than a bit disturbing. Take, for instance:

I recently received several emailed photos of my friend Helen’s back porch in Alexandria Virginia buried under close to three feet of heavy wet snow. Helen’s eighty-six years old and she’s never seen anything remotely like it. In any normal winter I’d say that Helen’s snapshots could just as well have been taken in Caribou, Maine, except that the weather in Caribou that same week end was mid-30’s with a chance of showers. Last month, while our nation’s capitol was even more paralyzed than usual due to multiple, sequential, cleverly named blizzards, the city of Portland, Maine was busy canceling a planned winter festival due to lack of snow.

So clearly something majorly weird is afoot, eh? Or maybe it’s just me. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been experiencing a truly awesome stretch of “good weather karma” of late. When my wife and I flew out of Portland headed for New York City last Thursday afternoon, the weather in Maine was mild with an almost spring-like quality in the air. According to the Internet reports we were flying straight into the jaws of a violent “snowicane”

(I’m sure you’ll be able to find that on wikipedia tomorrow or the next day) in the Big Apple. Naturally we were concerned about delays, cancellations, blackouts, etc.

Nope, our flight was smooth, comfortable and on-time. We experienced no more than the usual amount of hassle getting a cab into Brooklyn from JFK and by mid afternoon when we arrived at our hotel in Brooklyn there were maybe 5-6 inches of wet snow on the sidewalks. I mean, it was a bit “sloppy” underfoot but nothing to write home about, which is a good thing, since it turns out that had we tried to “write home” at that point in the journey our friends probably wouldn’t have been able to open their email anyway. Our Brunswick neighborhood and much of Freeport, Harpswell, and the surrounding area was without power for hours on end due to a nasty wind and rainstorm. So while our friends and neighbors back home shivered, lit candles, and waited for CMP to show up, we were strolling around a balmy, sunny Brooklyn.

Good weather karma notwithstanding though, it turns out there’s a downside to this balmy Maine winter after all, and I caught a good strong whiff of it when I got home the other night. Judging from the five-alarm fire in my olfactory nerves it was clear that our always affable, often brilliant ten-year-old miniature old poodle Maggie had had a close encounter of the “getting sprayed” kind with a skunk.

Ah, yes. Like the swallows returning to Capistrano or the Buzzards to um, Buzzard’s Bay (?), the skunk’s annual return visit to my lawn/driveway/trashcan/garage is as sure a sign of spring as you’re going to find. If you’ve lived in Maine you’ve been through this. Six large bottles of tomato juice and a week later Maggie is past the worst of it. But, as I type these last few lines and prepare to push the send button so that my editor knows I’m still alive, my home office is still infused with a subtle but unmistakable olfactory reminder that we enjoy whatever pleasures we may at Mother nature’s sufferance. Whether we’re shoveling out of “Snowmaggeddon” in Washington, D.C. , slogging through a “Snownami” in New York City, or just basking in the fragrant afterglow of a plain old-fashioned Maine “skunk ambush,” we press on regardless and do our best to smile about it. Hey, Mud Season will be here before you know it.

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