Well, the weather has been looking up lately — and I have heard rumours that the Windermere Valley Golf Course may be open for play by the time you read this, a sure sign of spring! Sure hope I haven’t hexed it and it has started snowing again by the time you read this. I don’t begrudge all you spring skiers your fresh snow but am ready for it to stay on the mountain now.

Along with the fun and games that spring brings, there are responsibilities we all share. Coming up this weekend is a relatively new event called Earth Hour. It began in Sydney Australia in 2007 as a method to bring attention to climate change. It quickly grew to become a worldwide event.

On Saturday March 23 at 8:30 p.m. (whatever time zone you are in), you are asked to participate by turning off the lights for one hour. That’s right — just the lights. I like to take it one step further and unplug the television and leave the computer turned off. In the past I have found that I can read by candlelight and the hour goes by rather quickly. As a matter of fact you are encouraged to go past the hour and likely will not find it difficult to do so.

Another date to mark on your calendar for this spring is Saturday April 27. That is the day that Valley Pride will take place. Now in this valley, Valley Pride means cleaning up the streets, roads and byways – in other words, giving our landscape an annual spring cleaning. Members of the Rotary Club of Invermere are active in the organization of this project and ask that you set aside an hour or two that morning to help out picking up litter throughout our community.

Neither of these events ask a lot from any one citizen — but when we combine our efforts good things happen. Please don’t hesitate to participate.

Our kids are out of school for their annual spring break – please remember to slow down and be careful around town and especially near the playgrounds as they enjoy getting out and burning off some of their energy outdoors.

Marilyn Berry is the community columnist for The Valley Echo and can be reached at maberry7@yahoo.com.