Do not tell the Animal Rights people my goats have been ruthlessly stricken by spring-fever and sloth, (so obvious in the above picture). Activists will not understand my goats are merely lazy, and instead activists will assume my goats must be dying, for everybody (and especially my neighbors) knows goats are never happy unless they are up to mischief. Even Christian scripture mentions “separating the sheep from the goats.” Sheep are good guys, and goats are baaaaa–d.
But my goats are different. These are not sick goats. These are laid-back, serene, spiritual, Buddhist goats. If any Animal Rights activist dares to impugn the character of my goodly goats by suggesting they are sickly, it will only prove activists are racists, and are not inclusive, and are too narrow-minded to accept the possibility of Buddhist goats.
My goats are not so narrow minded. They can be Buddhist in this picture, and then convert to a pagan worship of Thor, Odin and other Viking gods, in the twinkling of an eye. They are strong believers in “diversity”, are open-minded, and are the epitome of impiety.
The amazing thing about this picture is to compare it to only a year ago. This picture was taken on March 31, and last year I could still (very carefully) walk atop the ice of the farm pond (nine feet deep) on April first. A year ago the land was still mostly snow-covered, except on south-facing slopes.
The one thing this picture fails to convey is the roaring wind. A few days ago the gales were northwest, roaring due to a departing storm, but today the trees swayed and brown leaves swirled across the pasture in the mild, southwest gales of an advancing storm.
The above map doesn’t really hint at the dramatic change coming to New England, over the next week. It looks like the small storm to our west will pass to our north. But, behind that storm, its northerly back-side winds are forecast to basically drag down the North Pole, (if the computer models are right). Deprived of its cold, the North Pole will be 25 degrees above normal, but we down here will be twenty-five degrees below normal.
Hopefully the models are getting carried away. At times they seem to be on drugs. Check out this Dr. Ryan Maue map from Joe Bastardi’s blog at the Weatherbell site, showing the fantasized situation in the upper atmosphere (500 mb), a week from this Friday. 
Allow me to interpret this map for you: “Yikes!”
I’m not sure the frost will reach Florida, but Georgia Peaches are at risk, and Virginia’s peach crop may be completely ruined; frozen in the bloom. In fact, if the above map is right, New Hampshire may grow more peaches than Virginia this year, for ours haven’t budded out yet, and therefore we have no blooms to be spoiled.
(No store-bought peach can compare to one picked ripe from a tree, for store-bought peaches are picked hard and green and are artificially made to look ripe on the surface. For years we in New England endured inferior peaches. Then finally botanists bred a runty tree that could survive in the north. It’s peaches can’t compare to southern peaches, but they sure are a lot better than store-bought peaches. This year the land-of-Dixie people, even as far south as the mountains of Georgia, may have to buy peaches in stores (if they can find any at all), as we, up north, pluck them mouth-wateringly fresh from our runty trees. What irony!)
Yet I can’t become completely smug, because the computer models are not saying we damn Yankees will merely get a few hard frosts. We could get buried in snow. Check out this Maue-Map Joseph D’Aleo posted on his Weatherbell blog:
Allow me to interpret this map for you: Do you remember those gentle goats this post started with? Guess what? Over a foot of snow means they will no longer be Buddhists. They will be pissed off and crabby, and nag me with “Nahhh! Nahhh!” (It doesn’t matter if I explain I’m not in charge of the weather; like Global Warming Alarmists they say it’s all my fault.)
Are you wiser than a goat? Will you allow a mere foot-and-a-half of snow to plunge you into abject despair, where you doubt the existence of God, and call the amazing beauty of Spring a complete lie which only babies believe exists, like the tooth fairy and Santa Claus?
With great deference and a humble and downcast eye, I meekly suggest the answer is, “yes.” If the computer models are right, and the mercy of the Almighty does not make computer models look silly and stupid, then, yes, the people in the northeast of the USA will make goats look like sheep, compared to humans, because the people’s mortal tempers will be so utterly bitter, nasty and foul.
O heed me, ye young puppies! For my hair is white with many winters! And I have seen these hard times before! Be ye not surprised when kissing lips snarl teeth, and your gray and gentle grandmother whips out a sword.
But hang in there, ye young puppies! An April blizzard is but a passing shadow. Nightmares are not pleasant, but dawns do come. (But not until May.)
I’m tired of seeing the long years pass
And gleaning, from ordeals, tidbits of thought
That cannot be knowledge, for I’m made an ass
Each time I behave all the ways that I ought.
My hopes are that apple, dangled on string,
Ahead of a donkey who trudges on
Too stupid to see he won’t reach the danged thing
Until, at long last, he’s at Marblehead’s dawn.
And then? He stubbornly digs in his heels.
I don’t blame the mule. I know how he feels.
I’ve bought advertisement’s dishonest appeals;
But even a sucker gets sick of ordeals.
You promised us Spring! We’ve only seen snows.
We’re sick of your thorns. We yearn for the Rose.
Sunrise's Swansong 