March

March is a significant month in many ways, both in historical and contemporary times, and there are many adages which refer to this time of year. 

The month of March is associated with the end of Winter and beginning of Spring, most welcome in our Northern Hemisphere after having experienced 4 or 5 months of cold and snow. I mean, even though many people enjoy Winter activities, who isn't excited by the thought of warmer weather and all that it brings? 

As the photo above might suggest, the term "mad as a March hare" relates to some of the frenzy and frenetic behaviour of (brown) hares at this time of year, when mating rituals and competition for a suitable doe has the bucks leaping about, boxing each other. Along the same lines, another old saying "on the first of March, crows begin to search" refers to the fact that crows begin to look for a mate at the beginning of March.

A rebirth, so to speak and one of the reasons March is celebrated as a time of planting and fertility.

Consider the old saying "a peck of March dust is worth a king's ransom" (a peck is a dry measurement of two gallons whose usage is pretty much obsolete). March is typically a wet month and if it's dry enough to produce some dust, it bodes well for crop planting.

If you read my last post, titled "March Comes In Like An Emu?", you'll know that pretty much everyone knows the saying "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb", or some variation of that, with the idea that the weather is somewhat unstable in this month. It can still be wintery in the beginning, with better conditions near the end, or vice versa, depending on meteorolgical conditions.

How about "beware the Ides of March"? A famous quote from William Shakeseare's play "Julius Caeser", whereby the Emporer recieves a prophesy from a seer, soon to be realized in his assasination at the hands of Brutus and his fellow Roman senators. That's the line from the play and Caeser was, indeed, assasinated on the Ides of march, but what is that exactly? 

The Death of Julius Caesar by the acclaimed Neoclassical painter Vincenzo Camuccini (1771–1844)

In Roman times, the days of the month were not numbered from start to beginning but rather had 3 significant days within the month from which they used as a reference to count back. Since Ides in Latin means divide, this day was the middle of the month, in March being the 15th. ( there was also the Nones and Kalends, but that's a different story. haha) It was all as much related to the moon phases but was also considered a time to settle debts, which in the case of Julius proved to be fatal. 

Here's another bit of March trivia is related to basketball and referred to as "March Madness". This refers to the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament, a single-elimination tournament of 68 teams that compete in seven rounds for the national championship.

In 2020, the first day of Spring is somwhat early by comparison to other years, ushered in on Thursday March 19th. What can we expect for weather, especially in these current days of climate change? 

It's hard to say but Charles Dickens certainly had a nice way of summing it up when he so eloquently phrased "It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade."     Charles Dickens