Posts Tagged ‘vernal equinox’
Duty Done
Today is the conclusion of my solo duty on the ranch, as Cyndie is due to return from Florida this afternoon. That means I’ll be vacuuming, doing the dishes, changing the sheets, running a load of laundry, and hiding all evidence of the ridiculous parties I’ve been hosting while she was away. Asher has been sworn to silence, and the horses have promised to keep my secrets.
What happens in the paddocks stays in the paddocks.
What happens in the sky ends up becoming photos John captures when the clouds form interesting shapes.
If you are reading this in the northern hemisphere, spring has sprung. Yesterday was the vernal equinox. The long, dark nights of winter are becoming a distant memory.
I’m looking forward to a break from being the only person available to entertain Asher. There are too many times in a day when he seeks attention, and my dwindling reserves of energy would prefer I take a nap in the recliner. Plus, this weekend is non-stop March Madness games to be followed. Asher always seems to need to go outside when the exciting final minutes of a close game are playing out.
I take the duty of watching college basketball tournaments seriously. Having Cyndie home will take some of the pressure off of me trying to do two things at the same time. I just have to remember I’m sharing living space again and stop living like a slob around here.
I must admit, though, it can be fun to live like that for short stints every once in a while.
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March Again
It’s the month of March again, just like it was a year ago and all the years before that. I paid a little visit to my photo archive for March ten years ago to see how things have changed here in a decade.
For one, there was no hay shed yet.
Look how good that driveway looked back then. Well… if you take a closer look, the problems had already been exposed in one particular spot.
Even with the ground frozen, the base under that old pavement was not sufficient to support the trucks hauling dirt, gravel, and sand that were delivered to create a foundation for the hay shed.
I find it much easier to look back ten years than to imagine how different things will be ten years from now. We marvel over how much our trees have grown but I find it hard to project that level of additional growth another ten years out. Will our winter weather be just a hint of its old self after ten more years of a warming planet? It wouldn’t surprise me.
March 1st is the start of meteorologic spring. Three weeks after that is the vernal equinox marking the official start of the astronomical spring season. This time of year I find it hard to fathom that there will be green growing plants and grasses again.
I read yesterday that the angle of the sun now is equivalent to October 13. Our sunrise is beginning to happen before I make it down to the barn to feed the horses. Time marches on.
I might have to figure out where I stowed all my bicycling gear last fall. I don’t know if I was riding in March ten years ago but I have a feeling I may be pedaling before the month is out this year.
I’m never certain whether the month of March is coming in like a lamb or a lion. All I can say for sure is that March has arrived. Or, from another perspective, we have arrived at March.
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Words Emerge
Spring has arrived on the calendar. Maybe that explains all this spring-like evidence unfolding before our eyes. Mud, primarily. Yesterday, I opened some gates for the horses that we have historically held open using step-in posts. Without thinking, I attempted to step them in and quickly met the resistance of frozen ground an inch or two below the surface.
It’s only spring on the surface thus far.
There is still snow in the woods, but it is shrinking by the minute.
The wooden blocks of the “boardwalk” we installed on a section of trail that gets the muddiest are beginning to reappear.
Cyndie has painted words of inspiration on some of them and it looks like those messages have survived the winter just fine.
Out on the open road I didn’t find any traces of snow while spending time on my new bicycle in the afternoon. I’m pretty confident I will never regret purchasing an e-bike. Having that motor assist took much of the stress out of my first real ride of the season.
Like the emerging words say, LOVE always. I expect I will be loving this bike for the rest of my life.
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Launching Spring
Continuing my celebration of reaching the milestone of Relative Something‘s tenth year, I found two previously posted Words on Images creations in the “Previous Somethings” which correlate nicely with this first full day of spring.
Happy Vernal Equinox (which happened yesterday afternoon at 4:58 p.m. CDT)!
After the weather abuses we suffered throughout the second half of this winter, reaching spring seems particularly worthy of special recognition.
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From May, 2018:
Buds
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From June, 2009:
Leaves
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Relative Something 