It’s officially Spring! Which is always nice, though I always thought assigning the season changes to the equinoxes and solstices was kind of silly in practice. I know control freaks gonna freak over control, and I suppose you have to assign the changes somewhere, but in practice the seasons are as they do and for most of the country winter is rarely over in mid-March. Especially the solstices: I mean, if you haven’t frozen to death by late December or died of dehydration by late June you’re doing something right. Right?
Ironically, this is the day our week-long winterlike weather chose to break and after a frosty start we’re looking at a really nice morning. So Tobie and I needed to be at Ian’s Cave right at daybreak for a marathon laundry session.
I very rarely have to run the washing machine twice at a time but between heating up the shower for use and getting stove soot smeared all over my best hoodie I managed to pile up quite a lot of dirty linen just in time for a protracted spell of nastyish weather where use of the clothesline and powerhungry large appliances was not advisable. With DIY infrastructure it is often necessary to compromise with the weather. Tobie, bless him, seems to recall that he rather enjoys lengthy periods of just hanging out alone in Ian’s yard above the wash, surveying his kingdom at leisure. So it’s still a nice relaxing chore even when it does take twice as long as usual.
Yup, seems spring-like here, too. 28 degrees! Although, my know-it-all AI claims the equinox isn’t until March 19th.
In Other News: USDA has officially declared most of us now live in a different, warmer, plant hardiness zone. Yay?
Twenty degrees here, but only briefly. At nine ayem it’s already almost forty and it’s supposed to pass sixty by midafternoon.
This morning, I woke up to snow on the ground. I hate you… 🤣
The equinox is when the sun rises exactly at midpoint between the solstices, which are the sun standstills at the points furthest north and south of the quinoxes. Very ancient cultures had these points identified through years of observation, measurement and alignments. It’s what I study — early solar horizon event alignments made by ice age people. I also study major lunar standstills (lunarstices) north and south of the center line of lung equinoxes. I’ll be singing another paper on this in couple off months. I presented my first paper on astronomical features at the Chicago Academy of Sciences more than two dozen hears ago. And the Vernal Equinox is March 19th this year, thrown off a bit by the leap year count. It’s warming up here, too.
Please forgive the typos in the prior post> I don’t seem to be able to edit lung equinoxes into lunar equinoxes, nor hears into years. Sorry.
Yeah, you’re right. I got the date wrong. Teach me to double check before I shoot my mouth off.
Yes, if we went by the first crocus, it might be a better way to welcome Spring. I think it is going to be above freezing here day and night, all week. That does not mean we will not have more blizzards. Happy Spring soon. ff