Best Time of the Year

MountainDon · September 25, 2007, 05:32:40 PM

Working in the shop today with the doors wide open I realized that the best time of the year was upon us here in the NM High Desert (5240 ft elevation).

The nights are cool but not cold (low 50's), the daytime highs warm but not hot (78 - 80), the rains have mostly ceased, the chances of rain 10%, humidity 16% and it's not windy like springtime.

The A/C hardly ever comes on and the furnace never runs.

The sun shines and the PV panels actually make enough daytime power to counter the daily (day/night) uses.

We're making money!!

How's it by you??

glenn kangiser · September 25, 2007, 10:24:34 PM

Great here. 82days currently 68 out. Nice-

I drove home with the window open - prospected off and on on the way home -til dark. Great weather.

Planted winter vegetable seed before I took off this morning.

September 25, 2007, 10:31:09 PM

Up in my mountains it's been a wee bit chillier. Rained a day or so ago, with a low of 48 and a high of 67. Last nights low was a crisp 36, must have been a clear sky, with a high today of 66.

(remote weather station, data from http://raws.wrh.noaa.gov/roman/ )

Homegrown Tomatoes · October 12, 2007, 05:11:55 PM

Last week (in SE WI) it was in the low 90s and painfully humid. I refused to turn the ac back on because we usually only use it for one week in July and one week in August here... but it was sure tempting! It was so stifling it was hard to sleep. However, as luck would have it, it turned off cool this week, and think the high today was around 52 degrees. It's been gray and cloudy for three days straight and I'm already starting to have that seasonal desperation for sunlight that I've developed since moving to the north. :'(

glenn kangiser · October 13, 2007, 02:38:40 AM

That's a major reason I left the PNW --- clouds and rain are so depressing.

At least when it does it here it is a welcome change. We have had several small storms this year -- 1/4 to 1/2 inch or so each -- maybe 4 times or so. Pretty odd to get started this early.

October 17, 2007, 09:13:17 PM

I hate gloomy cloudy weather.

Unfortunately, it is a trait inherited by both of my daughters. The first year we lived here, my oldest daughter would sit in the window during winter, periodically sighing, and ask, "Mama, when can we move to summer?" She has announced at various times that she wants to move to India, Mexico, Alabama, Oklahoma, and so forth because "it's got to warmer there than it is here." Maybe it is a vitamin D deficiency? I don't know, but I do know if you move from a hot sunny climate to the cool cloudy north, it sure is a hard adjustment to make, no matter whether you like the place otherwise or not. It's like Eastern Oregon and Washington... beautiful and great places to vacation, but I just don't think I could live there!

MountainDon · October 17, 2007, 09:27:54 PM

It's SAD. Seasonal Affective Disorder. It affects some people more than others. You don't have to move from a sunny place to a less sunny place. I was born and raised in Manitoba. Long cold winters. Low level of winter sunlight hours. The saving grace for Winnipeg weather is that it's actually quite sunny when the sun's up. Days just too short in winter to suit me. I definitely would have a problem with days/weeks of cloudy weather. :'(

SAD affects young women more than men, but nobody is immune.

I've read that the winter suicide rate is worse than the summer rate in northern Nordic countries.

My sister who still lives there uses a special bright light of some sort to add brightness to her office space. She says it helps.Even if it's a placebo effect it's worth looking at if signs of depression show up.

glenn kangiser · October 18, 2007, 01:20:01 AM

QuoteSAD affects young women more than men, but nobody is immune.

Guess I was just getting in touch with my feminine side.

Homegrown Tomatoes · October 23, 2007, 10:38:58 PM

Even back home if we had long cloudy or rainy periods (the rare times, like this whole summer, that it rains for more than a week at a time) I would start going a little stir-crazy. On the farm when I was a kid, when I couldn't stand it anymore, I'd just take off and go for a good long walk in the rain and come home absolutely soaked and muddy, but happier. However, it affects me way more in Wisconsin than it ever did in Oklahoma. The really stupid thing is that all summer long when the weather is nice, I just keep thinking how soon winter will be back. Since around January or February of this year, I find myself longing to move back toward home, not just because of family being there, but mainly because of the weather. Before then, I didn't allow myself to wish for it because I was determined that I wouldn't put pressure on my husband to find another job and move back across the country. Well, one day in February he came home from work and had to shovel snow for 35 minutes just to get in the garage (I'd already spent three hours shoveling that day so he wouldn't have to, but more snow fell than he could drive through.) He came in and grabbed his cup of tea and announced, "That's it! I've had it! I'd rather be a shade tree mechanic in the south than the richest mechanical engineer in the cushiest office in all of the north! We're moving south!" Thus, the hope of moving began.

Hope is kind of like an addiction... it just gets stronger and stronger until it is irresistible, it's the reality. If you were to ask me today, I'd say we're moving before Christmas. Does he have the job yet? No, but I am sure of what I hope for... so sure that I packed yet another big box of stuff today, even with stuff like the coffeemaker and a lot of my baking dishes that I use fairly often. Most of our really warm winter clothes as well as the flannel sheets are already boxed up and in storage (in retrospect, I wish I'd kept one set of flannel sheets out!) The crib and cradle and all the baby clothes are packed and ready to move... when I heard that the hospital my doctor delivers in is nearly an hour away, I told my husband, "Oh well, it doesn't matter since we won't be here when the baby is born anyway."

And Don, I don't think SAD affects women more than men, it's just that women complain about it more. All winter long my husband comes home from work and it's already dark when he gets in, and he just crashes on the couch, but if you were to ask him if the weather depresses him, I guarantee you he'd say no. However, just watching him and his energy level and appetite, I'd say absolutely.