Sunday, December 21, 2014

Winter Solstice

       The winter solstice is one day that I really look forward to. Days start to get longer and we can look forward to brighter days.

       Today the sun rose at 8:43 and set at 4:22 giving us 7 hours and 39 minutes of sunlight. Today was overcast and we had a high of plus 2 C( 36 F). When I came home a few minutes ago it was still plus 1 C(34 F).

       These photos were taken between 2 and 3 in the afternoon.

     
Even with snow cover it's still very dull

Typical winter cloud

Looking directly west about 2:30 in the afternoon

     I like reading about the solstice from ancient times and the celebrations they had. They looked at it as mid winter and they knew that winter would wind down. I could never understand why we were told it is the first day of winter. Different cultures also had a variety of celebrations. Now I'm thinking,  was the solstice an important date in the tropics?

    My mood will brighten now for the rest of the winter.