Sunday, December 21, 2014

Dark Days


It’s here.   The first day of winter.  The winter solstice.  The day with the shortest number of daylight hours in the year.  Of course daylight hours depend on where you live.  Here in Madison, Wisconsin we have 8 hours and 59 minutes of daylight on this day.  In Anchorage, Alaska, daylight hours equal but 5 hours and 17 minutes with the sun coming up at 10:14 a.m. and setting at 3:42 p.m.  And for Barrow, Alaska, there is no sunrise or sunset, with but three hours of what they call twilight from noon until three.

            We must have some kind of record for cloudy days here in southern Wisconsin, which make the short days even shorter.  We are going on three weeks of cloudy, dreary, sometimes foggy, sometimes a few ice pellets weather.  Good thing we have the holidays to cheer us up a bit, keep us focused, and more or less in good spirits.

            I remember the saying, better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.  I’d suggest lighting two, maybe three, or even a dozen candles.  A little light goes a long way on these cloudy, dark days.  A lot of light is even better.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Merry Christmas to all—and cheers for the days now begin to lengthen.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

January 28, 2015 7:00 p.m. Stoughton Opera House.  A Farm Winter.

Purchase Jerry’s DVDS and his Books from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose, Wisconsin (a fund raiser for them): Patterson Memorial Library


The library now has available both of Jerry’s DVDs, Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps and Jerry Apps A Farm Story.
Also available are several of Jerry’s book including The Quiet Season (on which the DVD A Farm Winter is based), as well as Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm, (which are related to the DVD Jerry Apps a Farm Story). Also available is Jerry’s new novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County.
Contact the library for prices and special package deals.
Patterson Memorial Library
50 Division St.
Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.org
www.wildroselibrary.org
920-622-3835



1 comment:

Don R said...

Jerry,

I'm certain that my father suffered from Seasonal Affective Disorder, as it is now identified. Back then it was the winter "blues". He would say on December 22nd, "It is better to be five feet from Hell, and going away, then 20 miles from Hell and going toward it." He really disliked the short daylight hours of December.