• Published 5th Apr 2022
  • 1,966 Views, 90 Comments

Spring Weather - Admiral Biscuit



Back in Equestria, the spring equinox is a hard line, the last day of snow, winter is over, full stop.

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Spring Weather

Spring Weather
Admiral Biscuit

There were two alarm clocks on the nightstand. One was an old-fashioned clock with two bells on top, while the other was a cell phone with an app.

For its years of service, the alarm had only actually sounded once on the old-fashioned clock. The click when the alarm mechanism activated was enough to wake Cinnamon Breeze, and she would reach out with her field to silence the alarm before it could even sound.

With a click, the mechanism released, Cinnamon’s ear perked, her horn lit, and before the striker could even move, it was interrupted.

Back home, the sun was more reliable than an alarm clock. Here on Earth, she’d discovered that humans changed the time at a whim; just when winter was over and the sky was light in the morning, they moved the clock to provide an extra hour of darkness.

She opened her eyes and contemplated disentangling herself from Harper, then decided against it, instead using her magic to pull the bedroom curtains aside. Despite the time change, the sky was sort of light when she woke.

Today, just like yesterday and the day before, was grey and gloomy. Both the newspaper and the weather app on Harper’s cell phone had said that was going to be the case, but that didn’t stop her from being hopeful.

A few early birds that weren’t deterred by gloom were already chirping. Cinnamon wanted to open the window to let the morning air in, but it was still too cold. Spring had happened, at least according to the calendar, but it didn’t feel spring-like at all. Her winter coat had started shedding on schedule, but the human weather couldn’t manage to keep a schedule.

Cinnamon nuzzled Harper’s cheek and pushed the covers off, got out of bed, and trudged into the hallway.

The coffee maker was screwed down to the counter so she could find it without error—her magical ‘feel’ wasn’t as accurate in a two-story human house with wires throughout the walls—and she waited until she heard the coffee machine burbling before turning on the shower and stepping into the bathroom.

•••

Harper was awake and semi-alert when Cinnamon returned to the bedroom, a cup of coffee in her aura. She didn’t like the idea of eating or drinking in the bedroom, but Harper liked starting the morning with coffee before all else, and it was the little things that mattered.

She groaned—Harper was not a morning person—took a sip of coffee, ran her hand through her hair, and then kissed Cinnamon on the nose.

The coffee didn’t completely cover morning breath, but it helped.

•••

By the time she was downstairs, Cinnamon was nearly finished with breakfast. Harper had her coffee in hand.

“I hope you don’t mind an experiment,” the unicorn said. “I decided I’d try huevos rancheros since we had a lot of leftover refried beans at work.”

“Beans for breakfast?”

Cinnamon shrugged. “They’ve got lots of protein, so why not?”

“Everyone in the kitchen is going to hate me.” Harper grinned. “Sign me up. You need any help?”

“You could get another pan heating, and then put the tortillas in it. If you want to be fancy, you could set the table.”

“Breakfast isn’t supposed to be fancy. My ideal breakfast is a bowl of cereal eaten on the couch while watching cartoons on TV.”

“We didn’t have TV, I had to settle for a Daring Do novel.”

“Novels are good, too. You ponies didn’t have super-sugared breakfast cereals with bright boxes, did you?”

“No, just boring tins and burlap sacks. I thought all your human breakfast cereals were stupid until I tried Cinnamon Toast Crunch.”

“Love Cinnamon Toast Crunch.” Harper dropped a tortilla in the pan. “You want a ride to work this morning, or you going to take the bus?”

“I haven’t decided yet. Are you going to be cuddly?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” Harper finished her coffee, put the mug in the sink, and rubbed her hand through Cinnamon’s mane. “But my inner Magic 8-Ball is saying cuddly.”

“You need a better soothsayer than just a icosahedron floating in blue alcohol.”

“No I don’t.” Harper scratched behind Cinnamon’s ears. “Fortune cookies and horoscopes give vague, broad predictions, while the Magic 8-Ball speaks simple truths.”

“Especially since you can keep shaking it until you get the answer you want.”

“Such is the nature of prophesy.” Harper leaned down and kissed her forelock. “I’ll never tire of you getting annoyed at things that are called ‘magic’ when they clearly aren’t.”

Cinnamon stuck her tongue out, bumped Harper’s hip, then scooped the eggs out of the frying pan.

•••

There was something to be said about the simplicity of Cinnamon’s morning routine. She didn’t need to pick out clothes for the day; she wore none. She didn’t need to pack lunch; she worked in a kitchen and could make her lunch at work. She didn’t need to remember her keys or her shoes; the latter were nailed on, while the former had been solved by tucking the keys away in a place where only a unicorn could find it.

Sadly, that wasn’t in a pocket dimension; instead, it was under the siding at home, and inside a cement block near the door at work.

There was a second, human-friendly spare house key kept under a rock for Harper’s benefit.

Cinnamon and Harper had snuggled on the couch until the bus had left, and the human had finally gotten dressed in her suitable-for-outdoors-but-still-technically-pajamas clothes. Once or twice a week, morning snuggle time ran long, and the un-springlike weather was good for snuggling, complete with a faux fire on the smart TV.

•••

They were near the end of the block when the snow started.

“What is wrong with Missouri?”

“I could give you a list,” Harper offered.

“It’s the fourth of April. Spring was two weeks ago . . . I knew you humans had bad weather management, but this is inexcusable. I want to plant a garden, but I can’t do that when the ground is either mud or frozen or both at the same time.”

“I thought gardens were an earth pony thing.”

“They’re more known for it, but I know how to grow food, too. In pots and in the ground.” She’d re-landscaped her house, and already grown a selection of herbs for cooking. “I’ve been planning from the catalogs, and I’ve got plenty of seed packs already, and some of them warned me to wait until the last frost was past which should have been on the spring equinox, but clearly isn’t . . . you don’t have multiple equinoxes, do you?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“The whole changing time thing got me wondering.”

“Yeah, that’s dumb. That’s to help farmers or something.”

“How? It doesn’t change the number of hours in the day.”

“I dunno.”

“I keep a list in my head.” Cinnamon tapped a hoof to her temple. “About the things I hate about Earth. It’s a short list, ‘cause I’m a friendly, happy pony. Right now your dumb weather is on that list.”

Harper nodded. “They say if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes and it changes.”

“Sure, tell that to a cucumber vine that’s freezing its leaves off because it’s snowing two weeks after winter ended. Half my winter coat’s already shed, if it stays cold I’m going to have to borrow one of your hoodies.”

“Borrow away, you’re adorable in a hoodie.”

Cinnamon stuck her tongue out. “When it it actually going to be spring?”

“For sure, positive, no snow, ground doesn't freeze, plants thrive, and you don’t borrow a hoodie?”

“Yeah.”

“Memorial Day.”

“Which is?” Cinnamon had a cell phone which she used as little as possible. It had a calendar with important human dats marked on it, and she vaguely remembered coming across Memorial Day.

“End of May.” Harper reached over and ruffled her mane. “At least the snow’s not sticking.”

Comments ( 90 )

Today was gonna be a state of the author blog post but it snowed and I got inspired.

It’s April; the weather ought to at least be decent, and Mother Nature should make up her mind if she wants mud or snow. Right now it’s both.

Had a t-storm roll through this evening.
I agree with Cinnamon about the changing the clocks thing. That can't end soon enough. Either stay on Standard time, or stay on Daylight time.
.
Then again, I've lived in Wyoming. In Wyoming, it can snow on any of the 366 days of the calendar year. ANY. Of. Them.

the first day of snow, winter is over,

the last day... maybe?

Hello from Kansas. We had our first big thunderstorm roll through last week and two Sunday's ago we had a weird not quite snow drizzle thing in the morning. Tell Cinnamon that we humans aren't entirely fond of unpredictable weather either.

As to DST, out of curiosity I looked it up and was rather surprised that it isn't some outdated relic of our agrarian past. In fact the first official DST didn't even start until the early 1900s. Apparently, there is a story that suggests Benjamin Franklin invented DST, according to Wikipedia in 1784 wrote a satire about the Parisians saving candles and waking everyone an hour earlier using church bells and cannons but he himself didn't actually "invent" it.

11202434
11202562

Well, if the House would hurry up and pass the "Sunshine Protection Act" like the Senate already has (unanimously, at that!), at least it'd stop flipping back and forth, though we'd be stuck in permanent DST. But at least it would be picking one way and sticking with it finally. Really, at this point I'd settle for either as long as it picks one way or the other and stays there...

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/623
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/69

11202623
It really is the changeover that kills people. And I mean literally kills people, if indirectly.

11202434
Back in 1880/1881 in Helena Wyoming it went from 56F to -44F in under 24 hours. :pinkiegasp:
Still the world record -and not the Worst Winter Ever in US history.

"My Uncle John back on the reservation had a blanket that was 24 foot long. But, that wasn't long enough to suit Uncle John. So he cut a foot off the top & sewed it onto the bottom to make it longer."
Will Rodgers

“Novels are good, too. You ponies didn’t have super-sugared breakfast cereals with bright boxes, did you?”

Actually, breakfast cereal was invented mid 19th century by health food nuts.

Before that, the middle class had pancakes & syrup, fried meat, fried potatoes, & toast. Indigestion was endemic but most folks were not overweight.

The poor had gruel, mush, grits, etc..

Dan

her magical ‘feel’ wasn’t as accurate in a two-story human house with wires throughout the walls

"That's my pony."
-Michael Faraday

Dan

Snow in April isn't nearly as annoying as tax season.

Do Equestrian expats have to worry about taxes?

I'm from Missouri, we got a snow storm the other day.

Was not fun as it had rained the day prior, so it all turned to ice over night.

I am surprised our silly pony still thinks we control the weather. Our predictions are about as accurate as that magic 8 ball. We just got good at the three day and are starting to make headway with the five day.

this fic reminds me of when we got hit with a massive and destructive ice storm... on Halloween.
Everything was frozen for days.

Cute, sweet, short; the classic Admiral Biscuit style we all know and love! Spectacular as always and it's never a dull moment! Hope ya didn't mind, but I couldn't help but make a reading of this snuggly fic of yours!

Audio Linkoo!: https://youtu.be/btxN7Xg6rYU

On April 1, 1997, Massachusetts got a blizzard that dropped more snow in one storm than all the snowfall of the 1996-97 winter.

ROBCakeran53
Moderator

Isn't this nuts? Yesterday it was cold and snowing. Now I'm sitting in my truck after work and it's 60 and sunny.

Michigan does what she wants to do.

Dan

11202861
https://www.twincities.com/2021/10/29/remembering-the-1991-halloween-blizzard/
Seems like only yesterday. I was a generic Charlie Brown bedsheet ghost, with thick snowpants and snowboots underneath.

11203044
whole area was frozen for days. massive amounts of damage and loss of power. They ended up pulling repair guys from all over the Northeast to fix stuff. I know because they used a nearly big parking lot as a staging area. Lots of the canpony thent things and 30 some bucket trucks were there for.... week and a half?

11202686
And not just in the obvious way of people crashing their cars on an hour less sleep.

Gets people going in *both* directions, from added stress on the body from messing with their internal clock cycle.

All we got here in Maryland is cool and rain, I am fine with that. (feels kinda like NW Washington state)

11202562
This end of the state had some thundersnow although at least we didn’t get the (so far) mythical snownados.

“Borrow away, you’re adorable in a hoodie.”

Ponies are adorable in hoodies. It's a basic law of the universe.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2016/1/12/1065301.png

This one is super cute! Would love to see more with these characters. Memorial Day is the safest, but we still usually start planting around mother's day in southern Michigan.

“I thought all your human breakfast cereals were stupid until I tried Cinnamon Toast Crunch.”

There was an Apple Pie Cinnamon Toast Crunch limited edition this winter that was absurdly delicious.

11202767
Our long-term weather forecasts are about as accurate as a magic 8 ball, yes. Fortunately, our short-term weather forecast are considerably better. Modeling complex systems is really hard, it turns out.

11202434

Had a t-storm roll through this evening.

We haven’t had a good one yet this year, but I’m hoping soon. Some heavy rains, and some unwelcome snow.

I agree with Cinnamon about the changing the clocks thing. That can't end soon enough. Either stay on Standard time, or stay on Daylight time.

I’d personally prefer Standard time, but could live with Daylight time so long as it stayed the same throughout the year.
.

Then again, I've lived in Wyoming. In Wyoming, it can snow on any of the 366 days of the calendar year. ANY. Of. Them.

That’s not for me. I could move further north in Michigan and get snows until May (and start in October or maybe even late September), but I prefer for winter to have a few good months and then go away before it overstays its welcome.

the last day... maybe?

Correction made; thank you! :heart:

11202562

Hello from Kansas. We had our first big thunderstorm roll through last week and two Sunday's ago we had a weird not quite snow drizzle thing in the morning. Tell Cinnamon that we humans aren't entirely fond of unpredictable weather either.

I’ll admit that I enjoy some unpredictability, but late snow not so much. Winter should have the decency to be done by the end of March.

As to DST, out of curiosity I looked it up and was rather surprised that it isn't some outdated relic of our agrarian past. In fact the first official DST didn't even start until the early 1900s. Apparently, there is a story that suggests Benjamin Franklin invented DST, according to Wikipedia in 1784 wrote a satire about the Parisians saving candles and waking everyone an hour earlier using church bells and cannons but he himself didn't actually "invent" it.

Yeah, as far as I can remember (without actually looking it up), some of the motivations for national adoptions were the world wars, and then most places just stuck with it. For a long time, most of Indiana didn’t, and when they first did DST since who-knows-when, all the Indianians were very confused by how it was supposed to work and asking me, since I was from Michigan and had been doing it all my life, what they needed to do, where the hour went, etc.

11202623

Well, if the House would hurry up and pass the "Sunshine Protection Act" like the Senate already has (unanimously, at that!), at least it'd stop flipping back and forth, though we'd be stuck in permanent DST. But at least it would be picking one way and sticking with it finally. Really, at this point I'd settle for either as long as it picks one way or the other and stays there...

Yeah, I’m very much in favor of that. I’d prefer sticking with Standard time as opposed to DST, but even my less-preferred option is better than switching back and forth.

11202686

It really is the changeover that kills people. And I mean literally kills people, if indirectly.

Yes, it does. My sleep schedule’s still messed up, in fact. That’s not the only reason, but it’s a contributing factor.

11202719

Back in 1880/1881 in Helena Wyoming it went from 56F to -44F in under 24 hours. :pinkiegasp:

That would not be the kind of day I would enjoy. I can’t recall what the worst swing I’ve personally experienced. Almost certainly 40 degrees in a 24 hour period, likely nothing outside of that.

I did some quick googling and while I couldn’t find any short extreme swings in Michigan that I’ve lived through, I did find out that if you’re a fan of huge and sudden temperature changes, Montana’s your state. An 80 degree (F) rise in 15 hours, a 42 degree rise in 15 minutes and a 47 degree rise in 7 minutes (Great Falls, Jan 11 1980). And a 1911 storm produced in several cities record high temperatures and record low temperatures on the same day.

11202723
If you keep doing that enough times and quickly enough, you’ve arguably made an infinitely long blanket. Probably, I don’t remember exactly how that math works.

11202738

Actually, breakfast cereal was invented mid 19th century by health food nuts.

I think Kellogg was one of the first, if not the first with his corn flakes. Probably some people did eat various grains for breakfast in some form or another; I think porridge dates way back although historically it wasn’t specifically a breakfast food. I recall reading somewhere that popcorn also used to be a breakfast food but I don’t know if that’s true.

Before that, the middle class had pancakes & syrup, fried meat, fried potatoes, & toast. Indigestion was endemic but most folks were not overweight.

One thing I learned from a book about a guy who lived with Mennonites for a while was that their meals were calorie-rich but all the physical labor meant you needed those calories.

11202758

Snow in April isn't nearly as annoying as tax season.

I should probably do mine soon. Maybe that would be a fun weekend activity.

Do Equestrian expats have to worry about taxes?

I would assume for income earned on Earth, yeah, they’d have to do it. I can’t see the feds giving a pony a break just ‘cause she’s cute.

derpicdn.net/img/view/2016/11/26/1303960.png
source

11202759

I'm from Missouri, we got a snow storm the other day.

I’m not! But we also got a snowstorm, which inspired the story.

Was not fun as it had rained the day prior, so it all turned to ice over night.

We were lucky in that regard; the ground temperature was still high enough that it didn’t stick or make ice. The roads were sloppy for a couple hours, but not particularly nasty.

11204381
They have no exercise regimens. On the other hand if they want hot water they start with a well, a bucket, an axe, and a dead tree.

11204381
They have no exercise regimens. On the other hand if they want hot water they start with a well, a bucket, an axe, and a dead tree.

11202767
I am surprised our silly pony still thinks we control the weather.
She knows that we don’t, but still believes that at least the seasons are controlled.

Our predictions are about as accurate as that magic 8 ball. We just got good at the three day and are starting to make headway with the five day.

I did some reading on that subject for Silver Glow’s Journal; not surprisingly due to the vast number of variables, the further you go out with a weather forecast, the more difficult it is to be accurate. I seem to recall reading that there’s a branch of math/probability which concerns itself with highly-complex systems and making predictions.

A lot of the granularity people want is especially difficult to predict. It might be a difference of miles or less whether you get rain or sun, depending on where exactly the front is.

11202861

this fic reminds me of when we got hit with a massive and destructive ice storm... on Halloween.

We got one over Christmas some years back . . . which actually completely missed my little town. I went from my parent’s house (which also got missed) through a section of the state that was without power nearly everywhere, and then just south of that it was like nothing had happened at all.

Everything was frozen for days.

Those are always messy and difficult to clean up and fix. And I would imagine that some of the iced-up trees that are going to drop a limb on a power line don’t always do it right away.

I used to live in Kalamazoo, and we had the almost annual hundred-car pileup on I-94 as a result of lake-effect snow.

11202862

Cute, sweet, short; the classic Admiral Biscuit style we all know and love! Spectacular as always and it's never a dull moment!

:heart:

Hope ya didn't mind, but I couldn't help but make a reading of this snuggly fic of yours!

Thank you! I enjoyed it, and put a link in the story description!

We're approaching the slice-of-life singularity. Soon there will be no plot left, only ponies in hoodies.

fr tho, fun story, very cozy read :twilightsmile:

11203003

On April 1, 1997, Massachusetts got a blizzard that dropped more snow in one storm than all the snowfall of the 1996-97 winter.

I wonder how many people were looking at that weather forecast and thinking it was a joke?

One of the nastiest snowstorms I worked when I drove wrecker was an April storm. It wasn’t any worse than the normal winter storms (IMHO), but people just weren’t expecting it and didn’t behave accordingly. I spent half the night on a five-mile stretch of I-94 pulling cars out of ditches.

11203037

Isn't this nuts? Yesterday it was cold and snowing. Now I'm sitting in my truck after work and it's 60 and sunny.

Yeah, it really is. I don’t like it, I want the weather to make up its mind and do one thing. No more snow, wait until November when I’ll enjoy it again.

Michigan does what she wants to do.

It does. We need to get a brigade of weather pegasi to straighten things out.

11203044

Seems like only yesterday. I was a generic Charlie Brown bedsheet ghost, with thick snowpants and snowboots underneath.

That’s a fantastic mental image.

11203106
We get that sometimes with big storms. Right now they’re doing power line right-of-way spring clearing, and the old Ford dealership parking lot has been turned into overnight storage for all the Asplundh trucks. I’ve also seen it used as a temporary marshalling yard for Consumer’s Energy trucks.

11203219

Gets people going in *both* directions, from added stress on the body from messing with their internal clock cycle.

The internal clock cycle’s what’s got me, and the starting to get used to it actually being light in the morning when I go to work, and then the ‘LOL j/k’ yanking away of that.

Going off DST isn’t as bad; I usually slowly change to the winter schedule.

11203257

All we got here in Maryland is cool and rain, I am fine with that. (feels kinda like NW Washington state)

Here in Michigan we’re in the fluctuating Spring, where it’s nice and then it’s snowy and it feels like this year’s more temperamental than most. Usually March is wild but by the end of it, Mother Nature has gotten it out of her system and it ranges from chilly and/or rainy to pleasant and there isn’t snow any more.

Really, the most important consideration is ‘isn’t snow any more.’ Instead we’re fluctuating between highs in the mid 60s to lows in the teens over the course of a week, and for the last few weeks a general grey and gloomy with rain or snow or both.

11203265

This end of the state had some thundersnow although at least we didn’t get the (so far) mythical snownados.

So far, I’ve never seen thundersnow and I’m sad about that. I can do without a snownado, though.

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