The Dead of Winter

   Once again I will bring up the subject of weather, something we all do when we are having a discussion and have little to say; an "ice breaker" of sorts. The title of the post is an appropriate one since it is very cold and the landscape is devoid of living things. I thought the "dead of winter" was the coldest part, but remembered that Canada's national meteorologist and one-man Farmer's Almanac defines it more optimistically as the date when there "is more winter behind than ahead of us." In this neck of Canada, the day is around Jan. 23rd, but we are still a long way from the "dog days of summer." One has to remember that there are several weeks to go before we enter "our severest winter commonly called spring."

Source: 
   The national weatherman is Dave Phillips and for more see: "Winter is Leaving, For Some of Us, Climatologist Says," The Canadian Press, Jan. 13, 2017.
   The really good definition for the Canadian spring is by Cowper and it is the real reason for this post since otherwise I would have forgotten it when the sleet is falling on MAY TWO FOUR. I didn't find the quote in something written by Cowper, but it is in a book written by Edwin Way Teale: Springtime in Britain. 

Post Script:
   As an old-timer I still think in Fahrenheit and find it preferable not simply because I am old.  If I was talking to my sisters in Florida today where it is about 70F I could brag that it is just about 70 degrees cooler here. In Celsius there would be only a 38 degree difference. If they happen to call me during those few days in July when it gets into the 70s, I can say so. There is no Celsius equivalent. If you say it is going to be in the 20s Celsius the temperature could be anywhere from 68 to 84. The Celsius teens are even worse. Although no one wants to agree with the Yanks these days, perhaps they were correct to keep the old method.
   I don't usually provide sources for the stuff found in the Post Script section, since the stuff usually consists of my thoughts for which there is usually little support. But, with just a little bit of searching I learned that my views may not be as unreasonable and antiquated as I thought. See: "Fahrenheit vs. Celsius: Did the U.S. Get it Right After All?" Daniel Faris, zmescience.com, Nov. 20, 2017
"Fahrenheit is also more precise. The ambient temperature on most of the inhabited world ranges from -20 degrees Fahrenheit to 110 degrees Fahrenheit — a 130-degree range. On the Celsius scale, that range is from -28.8 degrees to 43.3 degrees — a 72.1-degree range. This means that you can get a more exact measurement of the air temperature using Fahrenheit because it uses almost twice the scale."
  As far as other weights and measures go, I am not bothered, but my very long drives in golf still travel in yards and my weight is being gained in pounds. Don't forget, however, that many people were bothered and changes such as these can have unintended consequences.
"Remember the Metric Martyrs? The fishmonger and greengrocer in Camelford, the market trader in Hackney, the greengrocer in Sunderland, all convicted in the early 2000s for using imperial scales and labelling? It was one of the darkest times for the EU’s reputation in Britain. If we’re looking for specific reasons why so many people voted Leave, it’s worth contemplating the lingering ill-feeling left by those small acts of bureaucratic bullying, when the ‘little guy’ going about his daily business was squashed and criminalised by the rigid mechanics of Council Directive 80/181/EEC, stipulating the use of metric measurements, incorporated into English law in January 2000."
"The Original Metric Martyrs Are Still Waiting for a Royal Pardon: Their Story Became a Turning Point in Britain’s Relationship With the EU. It Isn’t Over Yet," Ysenda Maxtone Graham Spectator - July 9, 2016.