I have uncorrectably severe astigmatism so when it is dark and wet I navigate blindly through a beautiful world of luminescent cobwebs. Not good for driving. In order to avoid driving in the dark, I changed my start time at work from 7:00am to 8:00am. Days are so short near the Solstice that if I didn't leave on time, I was in danger of having to drive home in the dark. Things are better now. We've been gaining minutes in the evening since the 14th of December when sunset moved from 4:46 to 4:47. Today it set at 5:13 so we've added 27 minutes at the end of the day. Oddly though, sunrise has only begun to shift in the past week and we've gained only 3 minutes. An upside to this is that when daylight savings time kicks in this spring, I'll be so far ahead of the game I won't be driving to work in the dark. That's a hateful thing, to fight through the short days of winter into the light of spring and then to be arbitrarily plunged into morning darkness again. I won't miss it.
Winter moves along here in Washington. We haven't had much snow and no extreme cold. We've been down into the mid teens a few times but those plants that flower for us in the winter don't seem to mind. There are flowers on Viburnums, Camellias, Chimonanthus praecox, Prunus mume, and Winter jasmine. Statistically we're at the coldest part of the year; next Monday the average low temperature will rise from 28F to 29F, Tuesday the average high will likewise rise a degree from 43F to 44F. I guess that means it gets better from here on in. I don't know though; the Farmer's Almanac has us down for a blizzard at the end of this month.
Do you take your photos yourself? Lovely.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I surely do!
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