Goodbye, February.

2-27-07 SHORT HILLS: Back in warm NJ after a few days at the Dartmouth Skiway in frigid VT and NH. Actually the past two days there were pleasant enough to ski comfortably without losing body parts to the climate. The Skiway got enough snow so that there was no grooming on the original side, and the bumps grew bigger and bigger over a few days, getting respectable. Bump skiing is so much more exertion with all the up-and-down as opposed to cruising the groomed which is just side-to-side gliding. I did do one day with the telemark skis. Don’t ask.

Back in the pasture, I snowshoed a trail three days in a row, which got a lot of use from the dogs. I tried walking it without the snowshoes and would sink in to up my knee every third or fifth step.

I started reading The Rural Life by Verlyn Klinkenborg. The book is in twelve chapters, one for each month, I’m into March. It is just beautiful, mostly about weather and his farm. As someone trying to write about similar things, I’m in awe of the originality of his descriptive narrative and am inspired enough, without reading any further, to put it through the shredder.

It’s almost time to say goodbye to February, a most unpleasant, harsh, cold and nasty month this year. I glad it’s the shortest month. I couldn’t have taken another day.

I meant to discuss the Geographic point of the sun on the 21st of the month. At that time, the sun is halfway back to the Equator from its southern-most descent, 23.5° of South Latitude, reached on December 21st. The point on the earth’s surface directly beneath the sun, the geographic point, describes a sine wave on the surface of the earth, over the course of the year, from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn. Now we are on the steep part of the sine wave. The sun will go from about 12° below the Equator to the Equator on March 21st to 12° north of the Equator on April 21st. The flat part of the sine wave, in either the north of south, gives us our summer and winter as you know. The mean daily temperature in any region probably follows a similar waveform but lags behind in time.

Are you talking to me?

The Worden trail from the Winslow chair. See the Holt Ledge?

Guess which house has the better insulation in the attic.