Winter Solstice

Woodsman

Snow is lightly falling in the deep woods after dark.
Coyote howls up on the hill, my Mutt answers with his bark.
Then all is calm and quiet at this darkest of the year.
I and mine wish you and yours;The Best of Good Yule Cheer.

Woodsman

mfresa

@Woodsman, thanks!!

piperdave

@Woodsman I like your post, very nice. All the best to you and yours as well.

KA9FFJ

Nice touch @Woodsman. Timing is perfect..

mseddon

Another turn of the year! At the first house we bought in Salt Lake City I set up a winter solstice marker on my fence. The sun rose over it on the winter solstice if I had my back against the southeast corner of the house. I hope some future archaeologist figures it out. The winter solstice is the key one for agriculturalists as it is the date you begin counting towards planting time. 

Londy3

All the best to you and yours from me and mine. Traveling up north for the Christmas Holidays. Had to dig out my old deep freeze winter coat that I never wear. Good cheers y'all!

Londy3

Woodsman

@Londy3 I hope you bring a scarf and mittens, they're predicting single digits for night time temperatures next week.

Woodsman

@mseddon Our ancestors were pretty tuned to the Quarters and Cross Quarters.

xDutchx

When the days are short, Whitetails sneak out to nibble early, and put fresh meat on the grill.....

ghostsofpompeii

I may not be able to sit out in the cold winter night and smoke my pipe - but there is something refreshing about going into the brisk winter weather, provided your trip is no longer than walking out to get the mail. I may be in in the minority, but even though my back is causing me great problems, I still enjoy going out into the winter weather and shoveling snow, provided it's not that heavy wet snow and below zero. I'll bundle up as though I'm working at a Scientific Antarctic Research Station - and for a half hour it's me against Mother Nature. One of the few times since retiring that I'm actually performing manual labor. And as long as the snow is that fluffy lake effect snow we get a lot of around here I don't mind toiling in the cold. My wife and I are probably the oldest people on the block and we're out there with snow shovels working on the sideway and extremely long driveway, while my younger neighbors and their teenage kids are using snow blowers or hiring plows to do the same job. I see them peering out of their windows watching and imagine they're all making bets as to whether of not I'll have a heart attack before I get to the end of the driveway.

Woodsman

I know it's weird but I've always enjoyed shoveling snow. Unfortunately I can't do it this time. 

Londy3

Yeah, it's damn cold here!  Kinda inhumane but people live in colder places. I did bring my sub-zero winter coat that I had when I lived in Cleveland. I don't miss the cold and snowy roads. It's also very dark and I forgot about that, does something to your brian, not seeing much sun.  Reminds me how harsh living is in the northeast and I appreciate where am now. Anyhow, nice to see family and friends when I'm in town. My daughter got her wish for a white Christmas. 

ghostsofpompeii

I just watched some program on TV called The Booze Traveler and the fellow was looking for the perfect Russian drink. His trip took him to Siberia where he said it gets to 85 below zero ... and that's not the wind chill factor ... it's the actual weather. Where he was it was somewhere at 35 below and as he was walking through one of the larger towns he happened upon a young lady wearing a short skirt with her legs exposed. He commented on that ... and I couldn't get over the notion of having my bare skin exposed to 35 below cold either. Then I recalled my time at US Steel during the winter when the weather would get well below zero and all the preventative measures we had to go through to keep the water lines from freezing. I can recall spending an entire eight hour shift with a torch heating a frozen water line ... going from one end to the other in hopes of thawing out the line ... and by the time I'd get to the opposite end of the pipe the water that accumulated near the beginning of the pipe had once again frozen. It was a never ending battle against the elements - and Mother Nature always came out ahead. And all the while I'd be outside working in sub-zero weather cursing the day I was hired at the plant I thought about the Russian Steel Mill that was located in Siberia. How on earth did they keep the place running in conditions worse than this? Anyone who has had to keep water running through pipes in sub-zero weather knows how difficult that can be if the pipe insulation is mussing from a section of the water line or if it's discovered the heat trace lines surrounding the pipe are not working. But can you even imagine how much harder it must be to keep a plant in Siberia operating? My hat is off to those hardy Russian workers. And anyone who can tolerate those type of working conditions ... well I hope we never have to go to war against Russia. 

motie2

If it snows heavily in northern NJ I will be at the mercy of neighbors because of this damn sciatica....

@Woodsman, I wish you the best.....

AnantaAndroscoggin

Almost the first thing on the radio this morning was the declaration that Lewiston, the city next over from Greene was currently at –11°F.

daveinlax

We're spending the holiday season in our home in southern AZ. I love it here but we have this place rented out for the winter starting January 15th when we head back north.