Even though spring isn’t officially here until Saturday, it seems safe to say winter is over. (We’re not sure of the snow and cold, but the calendar does say winter is over on Saturday.)

It was quite some winter. It arrived in its usual form, a cool November, a cold December and a “very cold and snowy” January and February. However, we’ve had several weeks now of very mild conditions that slowly melted the ice and snow and last weekend we experienced our first prolonged rain event of the year.

The most common aspect of the whole of the last four and one-half months, however, has...