Winter Sun!

Sunset3Jun14

According to meteorologists winter is the three calendar months with the lowest average temperatures. In the Northern Hemisphere, December, January and February are the winter months. In the Southern Hemisphere, where we (my husband and I) spend most of the year, our coldest months are June, July and August.

In late June of 2014, I took this photo of a colorful sunset in our backyard in Atlantida, Uruguay. The view was framed and partially blocked by several fast growing Eucalyptus trees in our neighbor’s yard.

On 22 July 2016, when we returned home from an exciting tour of ancient civilization sites in Peru and Bolivia, I realized I missed sunshine. It was abundant during our travels closer to the equator. Looking out my office window, I saw a bleak winter sky blocked by rain clouds and the Eucalyptus trees; now towering 40 meters or so to our northwest.

The rain and clouds cleared a few days later, but my office continued to be dull. I wondered if painting the walls a bright color would help illuminate the dark room. Perhaps color would make up for the lack of natural light.

ChainSawGuy-1

Early the next morning I heard the buzz of a chain saw and saw tree limbs falling from the neighbor’s yard. My upstairs office brightened when a rather large branch catapulted to the ground below. “Here comes the sun ….” I heard myself singing one of my favorite Beatle songs. I could hear a guitar strumming and drum beats humming as more branches fell.

I ran downstairs to tell Doug the good news. We walked outside into our garden and watched a guy with a chainsaw about half way up the tree yelling at a ground crew below. They yelled back and pulled on a long rope to show him where to drop his next cuts. The saw buzzed and more branches fell.

At this point, half the tree was gone. We marveled at the increase of light in our back yard. Doug mentioned that the neighbors will have a few years of good firewood out of this.

I smiled. “And we get the winter sun.” A real treat!

sunset-3

5 Replies to “Winter Sun!”

  1. Ah, much as I love the light streaming in now, I’m already planning my solar-heat-remeditation strategies. In the summer, the incursion will be weaker because of the higher path of the sun, but the reflected heat of the baldosa tiles outside the kitchen and dining room can nonetheless be brutal. Maybe I’ll finally build a grape arbor?

  2. The sun is an important part of my life too, Susan. And how serendipitous that I should read your post just now. I was walking through my woods earlier, realizing how very different it is as the trees grow, the wide paths created years ago by the loggers are narrowing into foot paths. And I felt sad for those living in suburbia with all the manicuring, the taming of nature. They don’t get to see the natural changes that occur when nature is left to do her thing.
    It’s the change I relish, I realized. The ever evolving landscape. And now with you’d neighbors tree down, there will be room for your landscape to evolve once again. I can feel how excited you must be.

    1. Janet,
      Thanks for stopping by! I also feel sad for people in live in concrete jungles with no chance to see the stars twinkle or a marvelous sunset. We love living surrounded by nature and that ‘ever evolving’ landscape. We’re blessed!

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