Happy First Day of Spring

His Grace was nice enough to pop us over to Aspen for a few days, and this beautiful bouquet is in our room at The Little Nell, which is tres swell.

The reason we came, besides that it is just great to be here, is to attend a party for Africa Foundation, a cause dear to my heart and for which I am proud to be a trustee. More on that later. I also am seeing friends I don’t get to see near enough in New York–including a handful of girls I’ve traveled to Africa with–my bush sisters I call them–and that’s great, too. (Grateful!)

Meanwhile, here’s a little scoop on the first day of spring, signified by the vernal equinox, which is explained in the Old Farmer’s Almanac as follows: The word equinox is derived from the Latin words meaning “equal night.” The spring and fall equinoxes are the only dates with equal daylight and dark as the sun crosses the celestial equator. At the equinoxes, the tilt of Earth relative to the Sun is zero, which means that Earth’s axis neither points toward nor away from the Sun. (However, the tilt of Earth relative to its plane of orbit, called the ecliptic plane, is always about 23.5 degrees.)

Would you believe The Old Farmer’s Almanac website has 116,000 Likes on Facebook? I find that kind of amazing. And reassuring somehow, don’t you?