It was -10 this morning and we are among the lucky ones, our friends in Minnesota have not had temperatures above freezing for nearly two months. We haven’t done much better. As far as I am concerned, it is Spring. The light has changed, the sun is higher and stronger, I put away my winter coat, am wearing my fleece. Spring is a state of mind, after all, and as far as I am concerned, it is hear. One of my neighbors, a tough old farmer and determined climate change denier told me yesterday that global warming is a hoax, he heard it from the famed meteorologist Rush Limbaugh.

“Russ,” I said, “do you really think this weather is normal?” He shook his head and spat, “well I don’t know what normal is any more.” I know how the weather has wreaked havoc with Russ’s life and his crops, it has been much harder on him than on me. I think that is as far as he can go, and it’s good enough for me. People must believe what they need to believe, what works for them, and I know Russ well enough to know that climate change is a fearful and difficult thing for him, the end of a way of life, a way of thinking. One blog reader was outraged yesterday when I wrote that I didn’t accept the conventional wisdom about animals grieving. “Just because you don’t believe it,” she said, “doesn’t mean it isn’t true for everybody else.” This is wiser than she perhaps meant.

It’s also why I don’t argue my beliefs, I simply write about them. I don’t write to change people’s minds, Russ will go to his grave denying climate change, even as his crops are washed away by Biblical storms. We all believe what we need to believe.

We did agree on one thing, Russ and I, we are pals.  I told him the light was all Spring, the sun was saying Spring, the chickens were out and pecking around – they think it’s Spring. Russ and I decided it’s Spring.