In the Shadow of the Moon: Equinox Eclipse

My brother survived the equinox eclipse in Europe and recorded this image through a little box while in a partial shadow of the moon.
That makes me happy.
I love the idea that the little moon can blot out the big sun for a little while.
Meanwhile, I am getting grumpy about the US American convention that the seasons start on the equinoxes and the solstices.  I'm delighted that spring is arriving (I was just out planting kale, collards, chard and spinach this morning) but spring does not need to start on any particular date.
I can feel some of you getting defensive about this; your calendar reads "First Day of Summer" on June 21.  I am here to tell you that this is not universal.  Of course it is different in the Southern Hemisphere, but it is also different in Europe (and presumably Asia).  The summer solstice is "Midsummer's Night" and while some European friends I know grumble because it is not the middle of summer, it certainly isn't the very beginning either.
While I was gardening in Scotland, there was some talk of a record-breaking winter, weather-wise.  I asked what constituted winter and was given the look of, "What sort of idiots do they raise in the States?" since everyone apparently knows that "regular calendar winter" is "December, January and February."  My understanding is that US-based seasonal weather records are also typically 3-month based, rather than from equinox to solstice, so when the newscaster says, "Summer doesn't officially start for three more days but we've already had seven days above 100," you can become grumpy like me and complain, "'Official'?  What do you mean by 'official summer'? What office dictates this?" and "Ugh, too hot, perhaps I need to leave Oklahoma."
Where does that leave us?  I am pro more celebrations of the changing of the light levels, be they pagan or scientific.  Let's call them the Vernal Equinox, the Summer Solstice, the Autumnal Equinox, and the Winter Equinox and use them as reasons for celebration.  Then lets use cultural definitions of the seasons.  "Summer" depends on whether or not you are tied to a school year (or a beach house or something else that magically opens from Memorial Day to Labor Day).  "Winter" is when it snows (unless one is in Colorado, in which case "Winter" include only the months when there is no possibility of rain rather than all of the months in might snow), "Spring" is a feeling, and, everywhere I've lived it starts over and over again.
This year our first daffodil was blooming on Feb. 1 and the maples and elms bloomed that week.  Then it snowed, sleeted and hailed for the last two weeks in February, and spring came back with the crocus on March 1, an actual blizzard arrived on March 4, and spring returned with singing birds, blooming Iris reticulata and a bunch of daffodils on the 7th.  Bradford Pears were fully opened around town on March 14th, apricots and cherries are blooming now, and my east side currant has been blooming all week, while the north side has not yet opened.  The first peony plant emerged yesterday and the little bulb iris are fading as the hyacinths begin.  Spring is here!
Happy Spring!
Happy Equinox!
Celebrate both, but it doesn't need to be at the same time.