These past few weeks have left us entirely disgruntled. The vernal equinox is the astronomical balancing point of the year, but our weather, teetering on that knife-edge between seasons, has been anything but stable. We careen from calm days to northeasters and back — now the trill of the redwing on sunny afternoons, now the early-morning rumble of the sanding truck on roads slick with snow. Amid this annual stumbling toward spring, we look skyward for solace in the only part of this season’s equation that can fairly be described as inexorable — the sun’s steady progress toward our hemisphere, the days lengthening by a reliable minute at each sunrise and sunset.

The details of March vary from year to year, but we know how this story ends. The end of this winter is proving a messy affair, but spring is here. We’re entirely gruntled about that.