Coming soon: The dog days of spring

LACONIA — With almost three weeks to go until the start of spring, the men, women, children and dogs waiting outside Dairy Queen on Friday could be excused for thinking warmer weather was just around the corner.

Temperatures hovered around 32 degrees, but it was sunny and calm and the ice cream shop on Union Avenue was open for the first time this year, even as iced-in Paugus Bay gleamed blindingly white in the background.

Melissa Bigler was sitting on a stone bench and waiting for her order to come up, an ice cream doggie dish with a biscuit on top for Church, her 6-month-old English Labrador retriever.

When the yellow lab got his treat, he licked up most of the vanilla ice cream before chomping on the biscuit.

Bigler was in no hurry for the March 20 arrival of the spring equinox.

“You have to expect and like all four seasons out here, or you move on,” Bigler said.

Ice cream is a once-a-month treat for Church, named after Winston Churchill. With three other dogs, two German Shepherds and a Yorkshire Terrier, Bigler will be here once a week for the rest of ice cream season.

Bruce Stone’s 165-pound Great Dane, Titan, also was in line for ice cream, which is a regular dessert for this gentle giant.

Stone said Titan goes through a half-gallon of ice cream a week.

“He’s excited about opening day,” Stone said. “Titan had this day marked on his calendar.”

The dog is better fed than many people.

“I cook for him three times a day,” Stone said. “He gets chicken, pork, steak, macaroni and cheese, Shepherd’s pie. The price of dog food has gotten so high, I cook him regular food.”

Brenda Osgood also had this day marked on her calendar.

“I always come on the first day, the last day and a lot of times in between,” she said, enjoying her regular, a hot fudge sundae with two cherries on top.

Dairy Queen owner Mike Merrill put in a lot of work to get ready for the opening, including countless passes with his snowblower to clear the parking area and drive-thru lane.

“We always look forward to opening day,” he said. “And, I’m sure I’ll be doing a lot more snow removal. We may get more snow this week.”

The National Weather Service was predicting a good chance of snowfall Saturday, Sunday night and Monday.

Friday’s predicted high of 36 degrees was two degrees cooler than average for this date, said Gray, Maine-based weather service meteorologist James Brown.

He said climatological data indicates temperatures could soon be trending a little higher.

“It’s getting to that time of year,” he said. “The sun angle is pretty high and we should be starting to get warmed air into the region. But you don’t get rid of the snow in the mountains until well after the end of April, and this was a big year for snow in the mountains.”