Winter Wonderland at the Winter Solstice!
Happy Winter Solstice to all our friends in the northern hemisphere!
Today marked the shortest day of the year; the sun has "turned" and now the days will slowly become longer again!
Winter Solstice this year was accompanied by the first significant snowfall of this winter season... "global warming" or not, we seem to be getting a lot more snow these days than we were, even 10 years ago.
Our days here don't get super short — like they were in Denmark where I grew up, and it would be dark in the morning when we got on the school bus, and dark when the bus dropped us off in the afternoon.
It has also gotten really cold — much colder than we normally see in this part of Washington state — and we're just praying that the electricity stays on. That can be a problem because we have power lines running through heavily wooded areas, where the branches are now loaded with snow to the breaking point...
In spite of the cold, this will most likely end up being another of our "designer snow" events... meaning that even though there is a pretty stout layer of snow on the ground and it's 15 degrees (about -10C) right now, it's likely to be raining and mid-50's (10-13C) by Christmas Day.
Which is really OK by me... I'm not a big fan of prolonged snow cover.
Funny how things change... as kids, we just couldn't wait for winter snows, and now we're glad if they only last a few days!
Daisy the dog is always happy when it snows; she loves running around the yard in the fresh powder, truly showing her part husky roots!
Part of the "fun" of a good snowfall here is that we get to stay at home.
Well, we don't have to, but we have to go down and then up a couple of steep hills with multiple "S-curves" to get out of our neighborhood... and they don't really have enough snow clearing equipment to take care of the "outlying" areas right away.
We can usually tell when there's no garbage pickup on the scheduled day (today) and suddenly the ubiquitous Amazon delivery vans are no longer cruising around... means our roads haven't been plowed and de-iced.
Of course, we should have a 4-wheel drive of some sort... but we don't. Oh well.
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great rest of your week!
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Created at 20221221 23:46 PDT
0703/1950
Happy white solstice! It was nearly green here and cold. We’ve got a weather thing coming in tonight that’s forecast to be bad enough that the electric company called warning of power failures through Christmas Eve.
That won’t affect me much outside of the aggravation of habitually hitting power switches that don’t work. But I have plenty of oil lamps, wood for the stoves, gas for cooking and hot water, and laundry is done for the week. If it does get bad I have a generator I can hook up.
But no lights on the Christmas trees or music....
When winter does strike western Washington, it does so with a bang! I remember that from my childhood days along the Columbia River. Here in north Idaho, we get quite a bit of snow, especially in the area where I live. There is plenty on the ground right now, and the lows have been below zero. I'm ready for a warm-up!