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Yesterday, my calendar told me that it is officially Winter. While I agree that yesterday may have been the
shortest day of the year, you'll have a tough time trying to convince me that winter didn't start a long
time ago. It feels like fall lasted about a month, then we stepped right out of a pile of leaves into
a pile of snow.
Speaking of the shortest day of the year, many of us are thrilled with the idea that the days will
start getting longer again. Sunrise at 7:30 AM and sunset at 4:00 PM means that the only daylight hours
are while you are at work. You usually go to work in the dark and come home in the dark. It's enough
to ruin your gentle disposition after a while.
I read an article recently that claimed you don't need to
take Vitamin D because you only need about 15 minutes of sunlight per day for your body to convert its own.
The person who wrote that article obviously does not live
in the North. My questions to him are "what sun?" and "how much of your body has to be exposed to get the
conversion you need?" When the clouds clear off up here, it usually gets colder, not warmer. So does it
count if, on the rare sunny day, my nose and cheeks are about all Mr. Sun can work on? I think I'll keep
taking those Vitamin D pills, just in case.
I did find a use for late sunrise this week. If you have a little flexibility in your hours and want a
picture of a winter sunrise, 7:00 AM is a reasonable time to hike out in your snow shoes and set up the camera.
It would have nicer if the temperature had not been in the teens. While waiting
for the magic moment when the sun lights the underside of the clouds, I cupped my hands over the camera
to keep it from getting too cold and wiggled my toes for the same reason. I can tell you that the sun
rises very slowly when it is curving low across the winter sky. I stood by the wood stove for a long
time when I got back, but I got what I was after, as you'll see below
Betsy Fulling sent more Schweitzer pictures this week. She and Jim got some nice shots of Lake Pend Oreille
on a 12-degree (F) hike up the ridge trail.
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