Posts Tagged ‘sunshine’
Downright Summery
Warm, sunny days have been few and far between this spring, which makes yesterday special, relative to the competition. It was almost hot, at times, and there was enough sunshine to get burned, which I did a little bit, after sitting on the deck with our visiting friends, Jeff and Renee. We celebrated Jeff’s birthday with some berries over Cyndie’s homemade pound cake slices, and a lesson in the cribbage board-game, “CrossCrib®.”
Out of respect for those who were on the wrong end of an overwhelming scoring feat of 31-0, I’ll let the losers remain anonymous, but Jeff got a sweet birthday present in the win and I enjoyed the perk of being his partner.
Seeing our guests roll down the driveway on their motorcycles was inspiration for Cyndie to pull her convertible out for a thorough polishing, while I assembled and installed the pump and filter in our landscape pond.
I found Cyndie very agreeable when I suggested we celebrate my waterfall accomplishment with a convertible ride to the nearest Dairy Queen for a treat.
The buds on trees are hinting that leaves aren’t far off now, and we drove past several lawns being mowed for the first time, marking visible milestones in this year’s hesitant transition out of winter. Walking Delilah across the hill of our back yard, I quickly discovered our grass is definitely in need of a trim, too.
After a melty ice cream treat, Cyndie got us home just in time to turn on the 145th Kentucky Derby horse race and see a historic ending. In a first for the Derby, the first horse to cross the line in the muddy slop was not the official winner.
After race stewards reviewed the running, they disqualified Maximum Security for interference, bestowing the victory on 65-1 long shot runner-up, Country House.
The first leg of the Triple Crown is in the books. Can summer be far behind?
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Good Friends
While clearing snow off the deck to allow full access to the grill and make a path to the wood shed, I spied our sunflower over the railing. It obviously looked a little worse for the wear, but seeing it triggered welcome memories of summer.
We needed more wood because our weekend plan involved hanging out with friends around the fire. It was even foretold in a fortune that appeared in a cookie Cyndie and I split.
Why, yes, we will! And we were! George and Anneliese came yesterday to spend the night. Cyndie cooked up a meal of grilled pork chops with pineapple that seemed to echo summertime more than it did the depth of winter we are currently enduring.
Yesterday’s fresh five-inches of sugary powder snow fell with heavy intensity for most of the afternoon. Today dawned a picture postcard perfect snowy landscape.
Last night, we mostly ignored the snow and celebrated joyful memories of the months George and Anneliese lived in our basement. The boys pulled off a come-from-behind victory in CrossCrib and Anneliese won the nightcap card game of Bikini, like she always seems to do.
At a time when Cyndie and I are contemplating significant changes to life here, it was extra special to have a chance to relive some of the precious times we have enjoyed along the way.
Good friends are an essential part of most of our best memories, aren’t they?
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Early Light
While the intense winter storm that moved out of Texas is pummeling the Carolinas and Virginia this morning, our region is bathed in calm. The air was so quiet this morning, I felt compelled to open the gate in the paddock by delicately palming the chains to avoid the usual clatter of metal on metal, while I was whispering greetings of love to the horses.
It was a perfectly brisk winter morning, but not biting cold. The chickens put in extra energy to balance on one foot, picking up the other and tucking it in their feathers to protect from the frozen tundra. The horses had frost on their whiskers, but otherwise look completely acclimated to the season of long nights.
They are contentedly munching on morning rations in that image, while the first rays of sunshine begin to paint their sides with a promise of warmth to come.
Hello, sun!
Our day will be filled with holiday projects, Cyndie in the kitchen, baking so many varieties of Christmas cookies it makes me dizzy with visions of sugar. I will be in the shop, putting sandpaper to wood, between making appearances in the house to be sociable with our kids and other family and friends who have expressed intention of showing up to be present for the great holiday bake-athon.
Every cookie I can convince them to take home with them will be one less for me to avoid.
The fire is radiating in the fireplace and the colored lights are on the tree.
Bring on the day!
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Another Staycation
We were able to getaway in town this weekend, leaving Jackie to take care of animals at home. Cyndie and I went off to spend a couple of nights at her parents’ house in Edina. Fred and Marie were headed for a cruise in Germany with friends of theirs, and we provided transportation to the airport yesterday.
Before that, we snuck out for a convertible cruise through our old Eden Prairie stomping grounds. The fabulous September sunshine provided ideal conditions. We stopped by a park to visit folks gathered for an EP fundraising event and enjoyed live music performed by Wondercure, some life-long friends.
After leaving the airport, we headed past an even older neighborhood of ours in south Minneapolis to hook up with more EP friends. We strolled with Paul and Beth along the Linden Hills streets for dinner near Lake Harriet.
Back at their house, we were treated with other-worldly dessert creations from a nearby bakery.
It all feels so cosmopolitan!
How did we come to deserve such richness of life, friends, and food.
It is not lost on me how much the remarkable warm September sunshine and blue skies contribute to making a day seem so positively regal.
Our experiences would have been much different had it been cool, gray, and wet.
I’m just sayin’.
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Wednesday’s Sun
It was warm yesterday, but cloudy. Nothing like Wednesday’s sun.
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Sub-zero Sun
One thing about really cold winter days, they tend to be very bright with sunshine. As I mentioned yesterday, the wind kept most of our deck clear of accumulation, even though I bet we received around 2 to 3 inches.
Since the precipitation started as a foggy drizzle before the temperature dropped back below freezing, surfaces received an icy glaze for a base coat.
When conditions changed to wind-blown snow, instead of accumulating on the deck, it acted as more of a polishing agent.
I failed at making an indoor nap the primary accomplishment of my day yesterday. There was a mess of snow that drifted on our front walkway which needed to be cleared, so I used that as an excuse to force myself up and out into the Arctic air. One thing led to another and I kept working my way along the driveway in front of the garage doors.
At that point, I couldn’t stop myself from getting out the Grizzly and plowing the full length of the driveway.
In the grand scheme of winter plowing, it wasn’t my best effort, but it will do for now. The surface is a frozen mess of layers from the changing conditions of the last month or two. We’ve packed down countless minor dustings by driving over it until it becomes a solid slippery coating, after which a warm spell turned some of it to pure ice and other areas to a slushy series of tire tracks.
The subsequent plunge in temperature has locked all of this up tight and then firmly filled in the crevices with wind-blown snow.
The plow blade basically bounced around and over the frozen pathway, as opposed to cleaning it down to the asphalt.
We’ve got plenty of sub-zero sun shining down, but it isn’t going to improve the surface of our driveway any. That will require the next wave of warm Pacific air when the jet stream shifts again, which forecasts hint could be just a week away.
There’s never a dull moment in our Wintervale weather adventure land lottery.
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January Thaw
I have lived near the Twin Cities for most of my life, but I never realized how consistently we experience a January thaw. From Meteorologist, Paul Huttner’s Updraft blog:
“A January thaw is defined as two or more consecutive days of high temperatures above 32 degrees. That happens in 93 percent of all years on record for the Twin Cities. In fact, a January thaw is more reliable than a white Christmas (72 percent) in the Twin Cities.”
Everyone at Wintervale is enjoying this little break from the ravages of the deep cold that has besieged us for the last few weeks.
The sunshine and warm Pacific breeze was just right for an afternoon sun bath.
The chickens are much quicker to come out of the coop with the warmer temperatures. The Buff Orpington spent a fair amount of time breaking up frozen sand so her bath could be a mixture of sun and soil.
When I noticed her kicking up a dust cloud storm and wallowing luxuriously in it, I pulled out my camera to record video of the spectacle.
I got two seconds of fluttering and a minute and a half of her sitting mostly still, occasionally pecking at the frozen sand. She was not interested in being the star of my movie.
The scene of Dezirea nodding off in the sun, with her tail flowing gracefully in the gentle breeze turned out to be the more rewarding video, even though it has about the same amount of action as the shot of the hen.
Legacy interrupted my video of Dezirea when he stepped forward to poke his head into the bright sunshine and blocked my view.
We have been trying to absorb this early January thaw for all it is worth, given the impending swing back to serious winter weather being forecast. Tomorrow could become a day of our greatest snow accumulation this season, and the thermometer is expected to sink back to sub-zero overnight temperatures.
Hello, again, winter.
It’s getting hard maintaining a charade of still being on a tropical vacation by simply revisiting our photo albums.
But that doesn’t prevent us from putting forth an effort.
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Sun Basking
This time of year around these parts, when there is warm sun painting the afternoon, you best soak it up to the fullest extent possible. After tending to the horses when I got home from work yesterday, Delilah and I were making our way back to the house and were overcome by an irresistible urge to pause and bask in the glorious warm autumn sunshine.
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After I took a few portraits of her, Delilah said she wanted to take some pictures of me. I gave her the phone and struck a pose.
She said she needed to fix something. My nose was runny.
If I used Facebook, I’d have to update my profile picture with that one.
.It was pretty funny watching her hold the phone in her teeth as she reached up with her paw to touch the button for the photos.
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Noticeable Difference
I sat down on the couch after work yesterday and the first thing that caught my attention was the angle of the sunshine radiating through the glass door to the deck. It seemed a lot higher than usual for this time of day. The days have been getting longer since December 21, and now in the second week of January, I’m noticing the change. It’s inspiring!
We have about a day to enjoy a break from extreme cold today, as a warm spell is pushing our temperatures toward the 30s (F), after which it is expected to drop even colder than it was last Sunday and Monday. Brrrr.
Luckily, I will have plenty of indoor entertainment available in the form of televised NFL playoff games in which my team is not participating. That makes them all stress-free for me, because I have no emotional attachment to any other team’s success or failure. If someone’s kicker misses a potential game-winning field goal, I will be able to feel their pain, for sure.
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Delilah was gnawing ferociously on a new stuffed duck-looking chew toy that Cyndie bought and suddenly she seemed entranced by how high the sun still was at such an early hour.
Great minds think alike.
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Relative Something 