December 16th, 2012

 

Viewed from a latitude of approximately 48º 12' 18" North

today's sunset was enjoyed as it was later than yesterday's.

Each morning's sun will still be a little later until the third

of January.  Then the days will lengthen from each end.

 

For a week or so we will be in a wobbly eight and a third hours

of daylight, give or take a few minutes as you adjust to your

latitude and hemisphere.  On Christmas Day a perhaps unknown

gift is the first of the lengthening days of this winter.  Eight

hours and twenty minutes on twenty-fourth is followed by eight

hours and twenty-one minutes on the twenty-fifth, which is then

followed by eight hours and twenty-two minutes of not quite

summer warmth on the twenty-sixth.

 

Winter solstice of 2012 occurs at approximately 3:12 a.m. PST,

the Friday just a few days away.  No more falling leaves to

worry about. They are through.  Winds will carry wind chill

warnings soon.  The gloves and mittens hidden in closets will

be searched for and found before the next trip out the door

for some of us.

 

We stood at the corner today looking at the few remaining stalks

of corn to see which way the wind was bending them.  The official

forecast said steady winds at 25-30 with gusts to 50 miles per

hour.  We cannot trust the weather forecast because the Olympic

Mountains are both a wind deflector and a wind accelerator.  It

depends on the point of origin.  The corn stalks are better than

any television or Web site.  The almost bare fields are here and

now--exactly where we need to know about.  We continued straight

so as to have the wind in our face now, but at our backs on the

way home.

 

The additional minute until sunset was not figured into our

route today.  We noted the point of the far mountains where the

sun set and imagined where two diameters would be tomorrow.  We

could be a minute or so later to hold the thumb-sized stick at

arm's length and verify the sun was where we felt it should be.

 

We hid the stick behind the parsley skeletons next to the foot

of the stairs and climbed up to the prairie with the wind at

our back.  Two adult bald eagles were parked up in the sky,

close enough to see a feather move as the wind wavered, too far

to see if they turned an eye downward to note our passing.

 

The many rows of buried beets make the prairie checker board

of dark and green.  The dark will be there until spring when

the beets will be dug up and taken to wherever beets go after

being dug up.  We have never followed them.  In a few weeks

the green squares will be taller and take on the form of wheat

and then turn from green to golden, but that is an endless 

number of windy days away even if the days are getting longer

on one end.

 

rgot

 

John M.