This is one of those years in which we skip spring, jumping from a dragging winter straight into sudden summer. Squally snow last week, upper 70s (°F) and thunderstorms forecasted for this week. I suppose that's appropriate as Friday was cold St Dunstan's Day and Saturday was the festival of Mjolnir, the thundering hammer. I… Continue reading The Daily: 22 May 2023
Category: Nature & Weather
The Daily: 18 May 2023
I know I was just complaining about the weather, but I think I'm allowed another gritch-piece. Friends, while we in Vermont may not have an official frost-free date until the first week of June, it has not snowed in May in Vermont since 1996, and the next most recent May snowfall was in 1966. But… Continue reading The Daily: 18 May 2023
The Daily: 15 May 2023
It has been a rough time in the garden! There was warmth, but not as much as predicted. This morning it was 39°F when I was recording the weather. I had planned on going outside to put some herbs in the ground, but I was not dressed for those temperatures so I decided to wait… Continue reading The Daily: 15 May 2023
The Daily: 9 May 2023
Home Soil We need more geology in school. Or perhaps ecology. Probably both. If we are to survive, we need to understand who and what we are, and for that we need to understand this world that made us. We are earthly beings. We are small parts of a small planet on an average star… Continue reading The Daily: 9 May 2023
The Daily: 5 May 2023
The Greenleaf Moon is full at 1:34pm today. There is a penumbral eclipse with this full moon. In this type of eclipse the moon is in Earth's penumbra, so there is a dimming of the Moon, but no shape or color change like in a partial or total eclipse. This one is visible from large… Continue reading The Daily: 5 May 2023
The Daily: 25 April 2023
A Red-Letter Day April 25th is a complicated date. It is St Mark’s Day, which is honored with a wide variety of celebrations; and it is Robigalia, an ancient Roman festival intended to propitiate the god — or demon — of wheat rust and thus ensure a good harvest. These disparate themes may actually be… Continue reading The Daily: 25 April 2023
The Daily: 20 April 2023
When we learn of spinning galaxies filled with billions of stars, how can we believe that one country is more important than another? Why do we even have countries at all? We are riding a living planet through space, and we are all on the same ride together. — Akiva Silver, Trees of Power (2019,… Continue reading The Daily: 20 April 2023
The Daily: 19 April 2023
If you leave a man on land which is someone else's property and tell him he is a completely free man and can work for himself, it's as if you drop him in the middle of the Atlantic and tell him he is free to go ashore. — Henry George in Tolstoy's Calendar of Wisdom… Continue reading The Daily: 19 April 2023
The Daily: 18 April 2023
I am not fond of spring. Of course, I like the warmth and the end of shoveling snow. I love flowers and birdsong. Bees are rather funny when they first waken in the springtime. I don't even mind the lengthening days, though I do wish the neighborhood robins would sleep in on the weekends. At… Continue reading The Daily: 18 April 2023
The Daily: 15 April 2023
April 15th is Tax Day for the United States. In most years taxes are due on this date, though exceptions are made for weekends and recently COVID seems to have added on extra days. In 2023, individual tax returns must be filed by Tuesday, April 18th. I don't know anyone who puts it off that… Continue reading The Daily: 15 April 2023