Living in a place with lots of winter, like Vermont, among many, I’ve learned different ways to measure both time and temperature. For example, we all know that if you still have 1/2 your woodpile on Groundhog Day, you should make it through the rest of the winter. Although we did not have a January thaw this year, typically we do and, crazy as it is, when the temperature hits 45-50F for that day or two, we are all running around in t-shirts smiling like crazy.

This week the sun comes back through our kitchen window in the mornings where it will continue to shine until late next Fall. In many ways this one measure time seems infinitely more useful than looking at the clock or the calendar. While our February often brings our coldest temperatures, it also usually bring more sun and the sun is noticeably higher in the sky. Even thought our solar hot water heater made 120F water yesterday, it is clear we’ll need all the sun we can get! Here is the forecast (in F):

Since the beginning of the New Year, we’ve had only four days above 32F (0C) and seventeen below 0F (-18C). The last time the air temperature reached freezing was January 19th helping make this the second coldest January on record—just one more way climate change is expressing itself.

“How can you live like that?” I’m often asked. Unlike many, we have a warm house and warm clothes and food, and all that makes it possible to actually enjoy the amazing things that can be seen in this kind of weather.

 

 

13 Feb This entry was published on February 13, 2015 at 11:12 am. It’s filed under Garden, John Snell, John Snell Photographer, Photograph, Vermont, Winter and tagged John Snell, Photography, Vermont, winter. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.