"Months that should be summer's prime/Sleet and snow and frost and rime

Air so cold you see your breath/Eighteen hundred and froze to death"

-- an old rhyme

Well, it doesn't look like Maine's spring and summer of 2008 will equal the extraordinary cold of the summer of 1816 -- more properly known as "the year without a summer" or, as the anonymous rhymer put it, "eighteen hundred and froze to death."

That terrible year, when volcanic eruptions elsewhere on the globe likely contributed to the unusual weather, Maine -- and the rest of New England -- experienced everything from snow to sleet to frosts all through the summer. Crops failed, animals died, people went without food.

"All travelers need great coats and mittens. I presume the oldest person now living knows of no such weather the 8th of June," wrote Joshua Whitman, a North Turner farmer.

But Maine being Maine, and Mainers being Mainers, we've figured out a way to deal with prolonged bouts of cold weather. This week, some sportsmen were gloating over the long period of snow cover in the state because it's a boon to their business.

"There will be enough snow here to ride four or five more weeks," said Dave Jones, owner of Jackman Power Sports and head of that area's snowmobile club.

"We've got five or six feet of snow on the ground, and it's not going anywhere."

We like Jones' attitude -- when you've got lemons, make lemonade.

It's just that the not all of us can share the optimism. Gardeners, for example. We're the pathetic ones rooting about in the gritty underbrush these days, searching vainly for tender green shoots. You'll find us looking murderously out the window on the spring mornings that bring a dusting of snow. Our spines spring to attention at the merest hint of a phoebe calling. The sight of a black fly would make us deliriously happy.

Spring will come. It will last 10 minutes and pass in a cloud of pine pollen. Thence, the dazzlingly brief respite of a Maine summer. Pretty soon, the snowmobilers will be oiling their chains, or sharpening their skate blades or whatever they do, getting ready for more of the white stuff. And gardeners will be tending to their compost.

Life in Maine goes on.