The Drear and the Darkness

The last couple of days have been dull and dreary with clouds and occasional skiffs of snow, highs in the low 40s and lows in the teens. Typical fall weather for around here. Because it has been staying above freezing for the daylight hours, the snow is now mostly gone and we are back to the dull drear of fall in the period once the leaves have fallen. There is still a hint of green in the grass and the sagebrush is turning brown, but that too will soon fade. Somewhat like this:

(Picture from UC Collection)

L went skiing for her inaugural run of the year yesterday. That means she was both happy and stiff and sore last night when I talked to her. (Ibuprofen was invented for aging baby boomers. {*grin*}) The interesting point was that it was blowing and snowing up there - pretty much the standard weather in the mountains from now until spring. Right now, it is both colder and snowier in the mountains than out here on the plains. L proclaims that it is now winter in the mountains in spite of what the calendar says. At least it can look pretty:

(The glow of Breckenridge in winter.)

Which brings me to one of the things I dislike about this season - the decreasing amount of daylight and advancing time of darkness as we approach the winter solstice on December 21. Sunset is already at 4:35pm and will get progressively earlier as time rolls on. I really dislike the coming weeks when it is dark by 3:30 - it is depressing. It is even worse in the mountains where the valley walls cut the sunlight off even earlier. I often wonder how people who live at far northern (or southern for that matter) latitudes handle it. Days with no hours of sunlight seem like they would be really hard to endure. On the other hand, the shortening days seem to be ideal weather for soup. {*grin*}

Time to get on with real work.