The Dark is back

[Toddy]

It's cold tonight, and it's been heavily overcast and very wet. It's not yet really Autumn, but the Dark is back. Not enough sunshine for the solar lights to last for more than half an hour. Soon they won't charge enough to come on at all.

Feeling kind of resigned to it really, but it's like that first smell of Autumn, or Winter, or Spring, when I realise that the long days have gone again. The Sun is already lower in the sky, when we see it ! and it was supposed to be daylight this evening until about eight, but it was dark by seven. Just heavily overcast and very still.

I get a dreadful compulsion to squirrel when I feel this day, it gets me every single year. I know that Winter is nowhere near yet, but that doesn't stop me needing to be prepared.

I hope it's brighter where you are

M

 

[Bluebs4]

My favourite seasons winters coming

 

[Broch]

In summer I dread the shortening days but, when they come, I change my routine and quite enjoy them

 

[Wayne]

I love the dark. It’s a comforting blanket you can wrap yourself in. Move quietly in the shadows and enjoy your favourite places without the masses.

 

[Wander]

See, now I love the dark evenings - when it gets dark about 6ish.
Even earlier, if I'm honest, but I'm just trying compromise.
I love it when it gets dark and you put the radio on and the lights from the stereo are flickering, and those smooth, chocolatey, voices of the presenters.
Very comforting.

 

[Toddy]

I love the changing seasons. It's a quiet delight to notice that first change in the air. I enjoy wandering in the dark, but I miss the light. I miss the time to do stuff outdoors, to not feel pressured to get stuff done because it'll be too dark to see to work properly. To know that day after day after day, weeks and months, my son will go to work in the dark and come home in the dark, and even the weekend is curtailed because of it.

 

[Woody girl]

I don't so often wake realy early, but 5.30 am this morning was still dark.
I'm needing lights by 7. 30pm.
Only a few short weeks ago it was light at these times.
I love autumn, but wish the light was still there.
Winter is boring. Something to be got through, untill glorious spring.
I'm definatly a summer person.

 

[Broch]

Winter is boring.

That's a banned word in this household - time to read and study, to plan and investigate possibilities, to get on with the 'indoor' activities like needlework, leather work, artwork ... without feeling guilty that you're not outside tending the garden.

A good work light is essential but, with some excellent LED units that give good daylight colour and use very little power, that's easy these days.

 

[Toddy]

Best lights I ever found to work under in Winter were full spectrum agricultural grow lights.
I can't find them now, they're all weird colours, blue or magenta sort of thing, but the originals were a golden kind of light, like sitting outside in a gently sunny day

 

[Lean'n'mean]

The worst is when the clocks go back. Oh, why, OH, WHY !!!

 

[Broch]

I have to replace an old one now (light that is); the one I'm looking at is floor standing, has 5 brightness levels and 5 temperature settings from 3000K to 6000K (daylight is between 5000 and 6500K). Only problem is it's white; I want a black one

 

[3 Feet High and Rising]

Great no more sun, rain on tarp crackle of fire.

 

[bearbait]

The worst is when the clocks go back. Oh, why, OH, WHY !!!

The odd thing is that the hour change is not symmetrical with the sun: an hour on the clock forward at the end of March, which is around 10 days after the Spring Equinox, and then an hour back at the end of October, around 5 weeks after the Autumn Equinox. Never understood why there is this disparity.

 

[Woody girl]

That's a banned word in this household - time to read and study, to plan and investigate possibilities, to get on with the 'indoor' activities like needlework, leather work, artwork ... without feeling guilty that you're not outside tending the garden.

A good work light is essential but, with some excellent LED units that give good daylight colour and use very little power, that's easy these days.

But I want to be tending the garden!
What makes it so long and boring for me, is living alone, I don't get the social contact that I do in the summer, plus the cold and wet make me ache so much, and I get S.A.D.
winter is not my best time of year at all.
I do lots of craft work in the winter, but I do get bored with not being able to be out and about as much as I wish.

 

[bobnewboy]

Winter is when we are tending to the garden most! Emptying the greenhouse and giving it a thorough clean inside and out. We’ve plenty of hedge to trim - if we don’t catch the farmer’s hedge trimming guy going past the other side with his tractor. Then there’s tidying up the veg raised beds; weeding, digging in some fresh compost, and finally covering them all up with clean waste cardboard. Until the end of October we will still be cutting the grass every other week, and composting the trimmings. We trim the trees and bushes back and then have a really good bonfire to tidy up the brash. Then the wood ash goes onto the raspberry and blackcurrant beds as we trim their canes back too. It’s never ending despite the shorter days….

 

[Billy-o]

Yes, we got the first chilly night last night. Mind, it was supposed to have arrived about two weeks ago

 

[Scottieoutdoors]

Went out for a walk in a t shirt last night and blooming eck I realised not long into it that I should have had another layer!
But I do love the freshness.
I must admit getting up when the sun is coming up makes the mornings feel better. Getting up whilst the sun is still firmly in bed is less fun!
But new season, new discoveries!

 

[TLM]

The forecast here is for frost for the next two nights. Days fairly normal in the low-mid teens, eeeh slightly low really. Not really dark yet when over 12h light.

 

[Robson Valley]

The house is full of food, drink and fuel to get Rumpuss-cat and myself into winter.
The grapes are really coloring up, I have a picker family all set to take off the crop to barter for root vegetables.
The mountain ranges which form the valley sides cut off about an hour at each end of the day. I'm in shade/shadow. Winter Solstice, the sun goes behind the western range at 1:52PM.

But, I have even more lights converted to LED now and they are all on analog timers so the place is lit up when I get up and shut down after I hit the sack. Analog timers just pick up where they left off, I reset them once in a while. Digital timers have a shirt-squirt and need total help.
Other lights are "touch-lights," just the briefest stroke and they come on or brighten as I need them. No primitive fumbling around for the switch. Those are great for our total power outages. Jeez but is it ever dark here!

We had a good dump of fresh snow above the tree line last Sunday night in the storm. No cars got hit, one house took a big tree but repairs to the roof looked quite straight forward. Hell of a way to get your lounge room ceiling lowered 2 inches.

 

[Scottieoutdoors]

I know it's near 600 miles North of us (driving miles), but I was amazed at how late the sun was to rise and early it set in January when we went up...obviously being in the Cairngorms meant it hid behind some of the mountains, but it was quite incredible. Also once it got dark, it really got dark. We were a bit slow walking one day and had to do the last 30 mins in the dark, it was quite exciting once we hit a heavily wooded area..