2021 Life Logs, Day 310: Getting Ready to Fall Back
Date: Saturday, November 6, 2021
Weather: Sunny; High Temp 52, Low Temp 33 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Shadow and I were greeted by ice this morning. Beside one of my raised garden beds, I keep a 5-gallon bucket of composted soil. The bucket has a lid on it with a bit of a rim and water collects in the lid. Recently, I have been adding to the water as Shadow loves to grab a drink from the lid when coming in from outside. This morning we went for his early morning potty break and he went to the bucket to get a drink. No go. The water was frozen solid. So, I guess it did get down to freezing last night. It is supposed to be almost as cold tonight, then the nighttime temperatures rise a bit over the next week.
This afternoon I went to an event at the First Congregational Church in Falmouth. They had a public celebration in honor of the new solar panels they just had installed on their church roof. One of the speakers at the event was Heather. She gave a presentation on the importance of including values in climate emergency decision making. She addressed the reason why it is so important that we refer to climate change as an emergency, not a crisis, not a disaster. As she said, when you think of a crisis, you imagine people running around not knowing what to do about the problem. In a disaster, the problem has already happened and the only thing to be done is to clean up the problem. But in an emergency, such as a medical emergency, we know what to do. We just have to get into gear and do the things needed to fix the problem and prevent further damage. That is where we are with the environment. The emergency is happening now and we just need the will to do what we know has to be done. Easier said than done, but we do need to take action now.
Tonight, we fall back. We turn our clocks back one hour to get back on standard time. No more Daylight Savings Time until March. For people like my daughter Heather and my grandson Sam, this is a good thing. Heather gets up in the dark at 5:30 am to make sure Sam gets up and out the door, still mostly in the dark, to catch the bus to the high school. High school classes begin at 7:15 am. Sunrise today was at 7:20 am. Tomorrow morning with the time change, sunrise will be at 6:22 am and Heather and Sam will have light in the early morning. But on the other hand, for people like me who are not early birds, it is the end of the day that will affect us. Sunset today was at 5:31 pm with last light at 6 pm. Tomorrow sunset will be at 4:31 with last light at 5 pm. Ouch. This change is no fun for me. It means that my last time to be outside with Shadow has to happen before 4:30 pm. I find this difficult as I often have meetings or help out with after school transportation for the Goldpebbles and am not home until after 5 pm. Before I was warned by neighbors last year about the coyote that wanders through our neighborhood at sunset, I used to walk Shadow after dark. I do take him out after dark, but we no longer take long walks. I will adjust, but I don’t have to like it. Sunset will continue to get a bit earlier from now until the winter solstice. I love winter solstice because that is the turning point. It will begin getting lighter in the late afternoons, only a minute here and there, but I already look forward to that.
