By: Jefferson Weaver
As I write these words, it’s a lovely January afternoon.
The sun is shining, the sky is clear, the geese are calling, and the chickens are content. It’s a day that carries the promise of spring.
But by midnight, that will change, since we will enter the month of February.
I detest February.
The month has but a few high points—birthdays for my Sister the Troll, my mother-in-law, and several friends I hold dear. There’s Valentine’s Day, just about the only greeting card holiday I consider worth noting. There’s – oh. Wait.
No. That’s it. No other reason to like February. Well, I tried.
February is a skulking, sissified, sinister month, not even long enough to own 30 days, much less 31 like other respectable months. February doesn’t even know for sure if it’s supposed to have 28 or 29 days. You can try to convince me that February’s indecision and insecurity is really designed to help balance the calendar, but I don’t buy it. Why couldn’t another month be misbalanced, and give us something worthwhile, like another day of summer, or spring, or deer season?
Because February is foul. It is fiendish. It is futile to resist, because all one would be resisting is the miasma of miserable mud and half-frozen rain that should be snow or at least honest, honorable yet horrible ice – but no. February doesn’t know what it wants, ergo, it will not commit either way. Kind of like politicians addressing splits in their parties a few days before elections.
It was in February that I lost a job, was dumped by a girlfriend, and wrecked my truck — twice – all in one day. Also ruined a good suit.
February is a dreadful, detestable, disgusting, loathsome, lethargy-inducing, lugubrious, miscreant of a middling month, if for no other reason than the fact it always induces awkward alliteration, not to mention run-on sentences.
February is unflavored, sugar-free Jello, eaten on a plastic chair under a 40-watt light bulb watching reruns on a home-shopping network. In Mandarin, with Russian subtitles.
February is a month of torment for outdoorsmen like me. Miss Rhonda doesn’t like the extra mud tracked through the house, yet there’s usually no incentive to go outside, since the weather is often foul as February morning breath. There is a reason several tribes of Native Americans called February the Starving Moon. Most of the hunting seasons are long since over, and what prey animals remain are proof of Darwinian philosophies. The furbearers are hungry, poor and far from the glorious winter prime that comes between the last full moon of December and its companion in January. Instead, they just eat everything they can find and tear up the rest. I can’t blame them for doing what animals do, but by February, the fur is so thin it won’t pay the gasoline bill. Besides that, I’m not a big fan of possibly trapping and skinning a pregnant critter, or leaving dependent young. That’s the type of thing February would do.
My beloved catfish are usually more conservative in February; if they can fight the currents of the flooding rivers and streams, they tend to be more picky. Most of the time, I think they settle into a sort of hibernation. True, bass will soon be on the bed, but again, I’m hesitant to catch, clean and cook a fish that’s nurturing next year’s creel. And while I haven’t been saltwater fishing for years, I am willing to bet most such piscatorial prey have long since headed for warmer water. If I am desirous of standing in a freezing cold wind, in soaking wet clothing, risking hypothermia, all I have to do is stand in the front yard.
February, oh February, how do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways.
But thankfully, February gives way to March; even though we can and often do have winter weather well into the Month of First Flowers, the jonquils and daffodils will rear their yellow and ivory heads in defiance. Our bluebirds will have worked out their territorial and romantic squabbles. Rabbits will dance in the moonlight, fighting or mating. The deer will begin to fatten again, and mama possums will grumble and complain and sway with pouches full of babies.
March leads to April, the Moon of Growing Grass, when horses can become sleek again and turkeys gobble and gossip in the river bottoms.
But for the moment—it’s still February, and while I try to treasure every day on earth, some days are diamonds, and some days – like all those in February – are stones.
I hate February. It almost makes me sentimental for August.
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