Posts Tagged ‘winter solstice’
Like Winter
Even though it’s not officially winter yet, it feels a LOT like winter out there. The days are short; there is a lot of snow and freezing cold. The winter solstice occurs on Wednesday this week. It seems to me that the shortest day of the year should be the middle of winter.
I was so entertained by the sun dogs yesterday morning that I took a lot of pictures.
Beyond the awesome spectacle of the mystical rainbow circle around the sun, my eyes are drawn to the wonderful contrasting snowscape out in the hay field compared to inside the paddock.
I like being able to see evidence of where the horses are spending their time. The gates to both the hay field and the back pasture are open for them to wander out whenever they choose. Once the snow gets deep, they are more inclined to stay close to their hay, the waterer, and the shelter of the overhang.
I can’t say I blame them. I’d love to take a day off after wrestling for hours yesterday with the long handle of the snow rake to clear snow off the roof on the back side of our house. The extended length of the handle catches on deck railings and tree branches behind me while my attention is focused on moving the business end of the rake up on the roof. It’s a lot of work for my arm muscles, mostly reaching over my head.
There will be no rest for the weary today. I have yet to plow the area in front of the barn and around the hay shed. It won’t be simple because the depth of snow, including a significant drift, is approaching the limitations of the ATV and its plow blade. Since I prefer to not rely on the diesel tractor, for a variety of reasons, I will work slowly and methodically on the Yamaha Grizzly to at least get a lane open to the barn for the delivery of horse feed tomorrow.
Of course, more snow is expected to fall this week so a new round of plowing and shoveling will continue to dictate my activities in the foreseeable future.
It’s a good thing I like winter so much. No mosquitos and no snakes. However, sometimes there can be a lot of snow.
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Snowy Footsteps
Today is the start of winter. It feels closer to the middle of winter. Although, we did just have strangely warm temperatures and a weird December thunderstorm. Still, cold temperatures have become the norm and we have a slim inch of flakes dominating most surfaces.
The labyrinth hasn’t had more than a few stray animal footprints disturbing its blanket of white.
Delilah and I have been methodically distributing our footprints along most of our trails. I have a tendency to neglect seeing the depth of our woods when I am busy plotting my footsteps to widen the traveled snow path. I catch myself staring exclusively at the ground right in front of me.
I rely on Delilah’s nose to alert me that we might have some company nearby. On Sunday afternoon, Delilah was intently focused on something in the interior of our woods. As we approached an intersection of trails, I knew she wanted to go left based on the direction her nose had been pointing.
It took me a while, but eventually I decoded the camouflaged young doe’s big eyes and ears, frozen in a stare directly at us from around the large trunk of a tree. The longer I looked back at her, the more I was able to discern the rest of her body visible on the other side of the tree, too.
If Delilah hadn’t signaled someone was there, I would have been oblivious.
I would have noticed deer hoof prints in the area, though.
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Another Solstice
Winter 2020 arrived at our location at 4:02 a.m. CST this morning. For all the action going on in the universe beyond our planet, this solstice phenomenon is just between the Earth and our sun. In the northern hemisphere, we are at the shortest day of the year. The hours of daylight will increase from now and grow for the next six months.
We are more than ready to be headed in this direction again. 2021 is not far off now.
During our midday walk around the property yesterday, it was very noticeable that the angle of sunlight was very low. Shadows were long. The amount of melting power on a clear day in December is greatly reduced as a result of that low angle.
Plenty of white remains over our land, albeit only a fraction of what would be considered worthy any winter sports endeavors.
This time of year brings the earliest in the evening that we venture down to close the chicken coop for the night. It’s a swing of between four and five hours from how late the process occurs in June.
Ahhh, June. I guess it’s a slip up from living in the moment if I am focusing on six months in the future but there is the added incentive of longing for a time when pandemic isolation isn’t the prime order of the day.
The highlight of our day yesterday came early, during our viewing of the CBS “Sunday Morning” broadcast. There were multiple segments of heartwarming value, not the least of which was the cover story, “Promoting the Power of Kindness.”
“Kindness is a power we all have. We just need to decide to use it.”
I couldn’t have said it any better than that. (You can click the image or the link above to view the 7:44 minute story.)
Be kind to someone today on this winter soltice.
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Happy Hens
We are thrilled to report that our hens are acting very happy with the last few days of above-average warmth (above freezing!) around this winter solstice. Tomorrow is Christmas and the hours of daylight started increasing again so the mood is pretty festive around here. A return to home-laid eggs can’t be far off. The day they kick back into that cycle again will bring on its own celebratory moods in our house. We’ve become spoiled with a quality of eggs that the grocery store offerings don’t come close to matching.
During the previous sub-zero cold snaps and bouts of snow, the chickens showed zero interest in venturing outside the coop when we opened the chicken door. Yesterday and Sunday they gladly made the trek back to the barn overhang where there is prime sand-bathing to be had in the sun.
For some reason defying logic, the hens have sequentially been molting for several months now. The two latest raggy looking things are getting their comeuppance for the period they were strutting around looking like award-winning specimens when others were a sorry sight.
Everybody has their day.
We are going to leave the coop buttoned up for a couple of days while we take Delilah with us for an overnight to Cyndie’s parent’s house in Edina. The Christmas tradition for Cyndie’s family involves a big dinner with cousin families on the eve, then breakfast and a gift exchange extravaganza extraordinaire on Christmas morning followed with a big dinner in the evening.
In years past, when we had the horses, I ended up driving back and forth three times in two days in an attempt to be involved in all things at once. This year, we are modifying the plan a little to eliminate a couple of trips.
A nod to taking another tiny step toward reducing our use of fossil fuels for the sake of our warming planet.
I’m not sure the chickens will be so happy about our plan, though, now that they are showing renewed interest in coming out of the coop again when it’s nice.
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Year Ends
Today is the last day of 2018. What do you make of that? I think it’s just another Monday, strikingly similar to all the others, no matter where they fall in a year.
Our animals don’t seem to notice any particular significance to the date. The passage of time is doing our balding Wyandotte hen a bit of good. New feathers are slowly growing in.
They have all handled the day of rain and following freeze well enough, mostly by spending the majority of the ensuing days beneath the overhang with the horses. For their part, the horses show signs of understanding the precariousness of the icy slope, but it hasn’t kept them from braving the danger to walk down to the waterer, even though we put a tub to drink from by the barn to save them the trip.
I noticed several marks of slipping hooves which was rather unsettling, but they are choosing to make the trek of their own free will. I trust their horse sense in this instance, partly because the last time we tried to outsmart them, it didn’t go so well.
Walking Delilah around the perimeter trails has become a treacherous exercise of trying to walk like a penguin over very unpredictable surfaces. She hasn’t been slowed much by the conditions, so there is an added challenge of being pulled along by her, faster than little steps accommodate.
When she stopped to give a prolonged inspection to something that caught the attention of her nose, I spotted this single stalk of some plant that was dropping seeds on the snow. It looks like such a delicate process playing out, despite the harsh elements nature has been delivering lately.
It’s just another Monday, and life goes on.
I don’t know if it is something of a placebo effect, but since we are now over a week beyond the shortest day of the winter solstice, I got the impression it was already lighter outside during our late afternoon walk.
Or, it could just be the dawning of a new year.
Farewell to 2018 and greetings to 2019! It’s all just a series of individual moments. May we benefit by paying attention to them all.
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Short Day
It’s the shortest day of the year and the longest night. In recognition of that, it’s also one of my shortest posts!
Happy Winter Solstice!
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Frozen Proof
In addition to being warmer than normal this year during the months leading up to the winter solstice, it’s been significantly wetter. Luckily, yesterday there was no precipitation, allowing me to stay dry while changing my ‘Monday morning’ flat tire in the dark, on the side of the road.
Why does it have to happen on Monday morning?
One nice thing about the type of weather we have been receiving lately is that it has provided very visible proof of concept for the drainage tile we added to divert water around the paddocks. Even though it has been surprisingly warmer than normal, there have still been moments of good ol’ December frozen mornings.
Recently, one of those frozen mornings resulted in a very vivid depiction of the water that flows from the drain tile. 
The tile drains out into the longer grass of the back pasture. The image of that frozen outflow represents water that won’t be flowing through the paddocks on its travels downhill from our property.
Success!
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Relative Something 