Next weekend, the 33rd State of Maine Sportsman’s Show runs from Friday through Sunday at the Augusta Civic Center, a show that has always aimed to offer family fun for all ages — but particularly for children.

PORTLAND — The guy playing the acoustic guitar early in the evening was a fisherman. And the artist singing those original Pete Kilpatrick songs later in the night was as well.

Last week, when the weather warmed and an hour slipped through our sleep like sand through an hour glass — too quickly, so softly, it seemed a tenderness unfolding — I turned once again to the happily irrational acts of welcoming spring early.

We’ve reached the point in the 2012-13 season when we’re able to assess just how good it has been, both from the standpoint of skiers and boarders and the ski area operators.

Have you been awakened this March by a loud con-ka-ree? The song of the male red-winged blackbirds is ringing through the air again. Male redwings have been arriving back in Maine since the first of March. Females will not appear for a month or more. The reason for this striking difference in arrival between males and females can be understood as the result of an unequal partnership.

Professional team sports often generate intense opinions about player skills, and myriad statistic tables about pro ballplayers can support a claim one way or the other.

Back in the day, there were two types of skiing — on-piste and backcountry. You were either skiing on lift-serviced trails at a resort, or you were hiking for your own turns on unpatrolled, often unmaintained slopes. In recent years a third option — sidecountry, or “slackcountry” — has been growing in popularity.

The fishermen who gather at the Western Maine Fly Fishing Expo in Bethel next week will come together for more than a fishing festival.

Each year the Alaska State Fair holds a moose calling contest, dubbed the “Moose Calling & Tall Tail Contest.” But across the Lower 48 states, nowhere but Maine appears to hold an annual moose calling contest.