Many people—including some who ought to know better—call Michigan’s Upper Peninsula a winter wonderland. But with two feet of snow on the ground in late April, my only wonder is why I still live here. In much the way a puppy accedes to the leash, I’ve come to accept March as a winter month. But April is supposed to be spring. Major League Baseball opened its season three weeks ago—even in Chicago and Milwaukee—and if I have to take one more strike standing in the snow with the bat on my shoulder, I will undoubtedly lose my Dodge Ram mind.

When I tell my wife about the mastodon tracks in our backyard, she hides the sharp knives and suggests I drive south to find open water in the temperate climate of Wisconsin. I would never deliberately manipulate her in this way, but when my subconscious plays a game with fishing as the prize, I don’t hold up the stop sign. Instead, I wave it around third and toward home with the exaggerated windmill motion of an excessively excited coach.