What Southerners are Missing

[digitS']

This is the path of the sun through the year from Medicine Hat, Alberta.

That's a couple of degrees of latitude north of here and with about 20 minutes less sunlight. On This! The! Shortest! Day! Of! The! Year!

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

Yay! The days will start getting longer now!

 

[canesisters]

I just can't imagine trying to carry on 'regular' life in one of the places where the sun doesn't come up for days.... Or, where it comes up and stays up for days.

 

[digitS']

I think that I may need more than caffeine to survive a winter somewhere above the Arctic Circle. I might surprise myself and be okay ... or, not much less okay than I am now .

Sleeping in sunlight has always worked. It feels like pampering myself with a nap. I know I'm burning daylight but the nap will be a good thing.

I'm a person who somehow feels that greeting the sunrise is a very good thing, so I'm doing that in the middle of summer. Winter mornings, I feel like I'm in a great void. The living, like moths, can only flit from one lightbulb to another. Where are all the horizons and the vast spaces between them?!

A person from elsewhere might ask why Medicine Hat? It's location - northern prairie in southern Alberta - it has lots of clear skies where the sun can shine brightly.

On this side of the mountains, we are in the PNW with regards to sunlight thru half a year. The pnw ... it warrants the full designation of Pacific North West only when we can actually SEE the lovely green! Gray pnw for 6 months at a time.

Compare even the inland location of Spokane with its anemic 25% sunshine November thru January (as measured by sunlight possibilities) to Medicine Hat, with nearly double that. Spokane is d.r.e.a.r.y by that comparison.

We arrived here in such innocence, only a short time ago.

Steve

 

[Ridgerunner]

I just can't imagine trying to carry on 'regular' life in one of the places where the sun doesn't come up for days.... Or, where it comes up and stays up for days.

I think a lot of it is what you get used to and what you are conditioned to consider normal. And your lifestyle. I spent two years in Copenhagen. It was south of the Arctic Circle so we never had constant dark or light but the days and night could get really long or short. I'll admit I enjoyed the summers better than the winters. That was not just because of temperatures.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Sorry, but I don't miss the cold, snow or dreary days after serving for many years in North Dakota... My idea of winter is 60-75 degrees, which is what we have now.

 

[digitS']

in North Dakota

I don't want to compete with Winter in North Dakota, W_R!

Our competition is for growing season warmth ... ... Yep, this area usually runs neck-&-neck with places like Devils Lake and Fargo. I think we both have a slow start in the spring; then, the cool nights pull down our daily and accumulated average for warmth. North Dakota has its own growing season problems. I wouldn't want to experience the windstorms at anytime of the year and especially not Winter!

It's 10°f this morning with just enuf snow to say that "it's looking a lot like Christmas!"

There was snow in the shadow of the buildings from the 7" that we had on Tuesday. Much of it melted away with temperatures in the high 30's since. This was added to, and spread more generally, by the lightest covering of snow yesterday afternoon. It will probably melt off the north side of the roofs with the sun, just rising in the East!

Not to worry ... there is another inch or two forecast for Christmas Eve and no melting open air temperatures according to the NWS folks over the next week.

We will need the moisture of winter snowfalls through next year's growing season. The "snotel" totals at the higher elevations are looking good, right at 100% of normal or just above. Yay!

Steve

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I can barely stand it. This is the worst winter for some reason. I am dreaming of salads and I almost want to start my seeds now. I cannot stand the darkness. There was sun today, but so cold can barely go outside and get the rabbits taken care of. I have had a sinus infection or cold for over 3 weeks, but I think it is aggravated by DD's clothes washed in Gain laundry soap. I was well for 3 days and then went shopping with her and close contact in the car, I go around with my shirt over my nose. I am BEGGING her to come get some of my unscented laundry soap and wash their clothes before coming over here Christmas. It is so weird this weather here. I was born in Oklahoma and I am not sure I would have moved here knowing all I know now, but I also hated the heat and all the bugs, so no pleasing me. The smoke from the woodstove is driving me nuts. I just want spring, AND WINTER JUST STARTED.

 

[baymule]

I can barely stand it. This is the worst winter for some reason. I am dreaming of salads and I almost want to start my seeds now. I cannot stand the darkness. There was sun today, but so cold can barely go outside and get the rabbits taken care of. I have had a sinus infection or cold for over 3 weeks, but I think it is aggravated by DD's clothes washed in Gain laundry soap. I was well for 3 days and then went shopping with her and close contact in the car, I go around with my shirt over my nose. I am BEGGING her to come get some of my unscented laundry soap and wash their clothes before coming over here Christmas. It is so weird this weather here. I was born in Oklahoma and I am not sure I would have moved here knowing all I know now, but I also hated the heat and all the bugs, so no pleasing me. The smoke from the woodstove is driving me nuts. I just want spring, AND WINTER JUST STARTED.

Laundry soap is the WORST. I can't stand it either, or any other scented product. I clean with vinegar and water, buy unscented everything, can use Dove original soap. Chemicals make my face and throat feel like thousands of needles are sticking me.

I'll take the Texas heat over your cold and snowy gloom. I'll also happily put up with the bugs.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Laundry soap is the WORST. I can't stand it either, or any other scented product. I clean with vinegar and water, buy unscented everything, can use Dove original soap. Chemicals make my face and throat feel like thousands of needles are sticking me.

I'll take the Texas heat over your cold and snowy gloom. I'll also happily put up with the bugs.

Snow gloom. That's it. Lol