No nice weather ever goes unpunished in our neck of the woods.

We had a fabulously clement March, with nearly no snow and temperatures that were generally agreed to be “not too bad.” We didn’t receive any snow during our state high school basketball tournaments. These events are usually guaranteed to deliver at least one major blizzard.

Few complained about our open winter. An exception might be the folks who operate snow removal businesses. Some became so desperate that they began to look for people who suffer from severe dandruff.

Because the weather was so pleasant, my wife and I opted to attend the Central Plains Dairy Expo in Sioux Falls. I dairy farmed until I was 45 years old and spent the next 21 years working for a dairy newspaper. I am familiar with the dairy industry much in the same way that a fish is familiar with water.

Upon entering the Expo, my wife immediately requisitioned a swag bag and began to collect tchotchkes including such critical items as free pens, scratch pads and small foam rubber cows. I have squeezed those cows and failed to obtain so much as a single drop of foam rubber milk.

One of the booths at the Expo touted a business that specializes in manure management. I understand what that means, but the term “manure management” could also imply that they run political campaigns.

I wandered aimlessly through the Expo, chatting with friends and business acquaintances and enjoying the free cheese and ice cream. All told, it wasn’t a bad way to spend a March morning.

While waiting in line for free donut holes, I overheard two young couples discussing issues they were having with their dairy cattle. I perceived that one of the couples had a herd of Jerseys, so I couldn’t resist joining the discussion. That is how I met a nice couple who hailed from Manhattan. Manhattan, Kansas, that is.

As we chatted, I noticed that the young dairywoman had a swag bag that contained several swag bags. She was obviously quite serious when it came to obtaining Expo freebies.

The next day dawned clear and balmy. I stepped through the front door and heard a robin warbling at the top of his little lungs from a nearby cottonwood tree. A pair of geese honked as they zoomed low overhead while a bevy of blackbirds serenaded me with their signature “oak-a-lee.”

You will understand why, at that very moment, I came down with an acute case of spring fever.

I threw myself into the projects that I had been putting off until the arrival of nice weather. I hopped on my John Deere “3010” tractor and used its loader to apply some well-composted manure on the garden and to redistribute some crushed concrete in our cattle yard. I hauled dirt to fill in the holes that our dog, Bella, had excavated during her failed attempts to evict the striped gophers that had moved into our lawn last summer.

It was so nice outside that I was able to shed my jacket. This was such a bizarre development that it seemed worthy of a newspaper story. I could see it all:

“Local Man Does Yardwork While Wearing Only T-shirt and Jeans!” screams the banner headline.

“It was so weird for the month of March,” the man is quoted as saying. “At one point I felt a sheen of moisture on my arm. It took me a minute to figure out that it was sweat!”

That afternoon I went to the shop to work on a small woodworking project. Outdoor conditions were so pleasant that I was able to leave the big door wide open. It was a perfect spring day, and the sense of accomplishment was heady.

But because I let it go to my head, the weather gods decided to take me down a notch or two.

The next day was cloudy with a biting gale howling down from the north. Icy rain began to fall from the steel-colored sky. Late in the afternoon, rumbles of thunder could be heard. It wasn’t the loud, dramatic thunder that one might associate with a Fourth of July fireworks display. These were long, low reverberations that made you think that someone upstairs was rolling a cosmic bowling ball down a humungous wooden lane.

The thunder heralded the arrival of snow. By the next morning, our farm wore a blanket of white; the springlike weather from the day before seemed like a daydream.

So it goes. But with any luck, this punishment will be over in time for us to start fretting about the summertime heat.

— Jerry’s book, “Dear County Agent Guy” can be found at www.workman.com and in bookstores nationwide.