Garden Detective

So you'll never have to grab a pencil and paper to calculate when leap year will fall, here's the formula: If you can evenly divide the year by 4, it's a leap year. (Century years have to be divisible by 400, but that won't apply again in our lifetimes so it's moot.)

The real reason we have leap years is because the earth's rotation doesn't keep up with our calendar. We lose a quarter of a day every year, so we add an extra day to the calendar every 4 years to make up for it. Otherwise, eventually, summer would fall in winter. Then we'd all be worried about global warming when, in fact, things would be right on target.

I know someone whose birthday is February 29, and so at age 48 he's only celebrated 11 or 12 birthdays. His kids love telling people they're older than their dad.

Back in the day (not my day, actually, but the day), leap year, or Sadie Hawkins Day, was the only acceptable day for a woman to ask a man out on a date -- or to propose marriage. Schools had dances to which the girls had to invite the boys. I guess as a society we've always had fun with this necessary oddity.

But for me, I like the idea of having an extra day, much like I appreciate the extra hour that daylight savings affords. That hour gives me extra time to pull weeds, harvest tomatoes or just kick back in my lounge chair with a fresh-from-the-garden mint mojito. I love coming home from work and feeling like I have the whole day ahead of me because it's still light out. Similarly, I'll appreciate the extra day I'll get tomorrow.

Maybe I'll spend some time getting my seed-starting supplies ready. I'll check the bulb in my fluorescent light kit, order some seeds online and -- well, maybe kick back with a from-the-produce-department mint mojito.