You’d never know it’s December by the weather or climate. I walked outside an hour or two ago, and was struck by the fact that it felt entirely like spring. You know how it is on that first day or two of warming weather, the first day of the year that you can walk outside […]
December first. The last month of the year, at least as the outside world reckons it: the month that holds the Solstice, the biggest of that world’s holidays, and year’s end. Here, it’s Quiet Season, and in truth, I’ve always felt that the rest of the world could benefit greatly from treating this time in […]
The sky this day is a clear hard turquoise blue, unmarred by clouds save a webwork of contrails to the west, their spreading plumes of white merging with a much larger plume at the horizon that appears to be smoke. Were the white haze just a little further south, I’d attribute it to the inversion […]
It’s officially “the holiday season” now. Which means, I suppose, that I can bid farewell to any notions of being able to do my own work in any kind of timely fashion; I haven’t had a day that permitted it over the last two to three weeks, and over the next month, the pace will […]
It’s that day again: what the outside world calls “Thanksgiving,” and plenty of Native people we know call “Thankstaking” in gentle mockery. others abjure it altogether, preferring to hold this as the national Day of Mourning and Remembrance. Or, as we are wont to call it, “We Are Still [insert profane adjective ending in -ing […]
We have no sunrise this morning, at least not of the observable kind: The sky first began lightening in the west, with only the thinnest strip of coral above one of the valleys to the south. To the east, where one would expect to see first light, remains an unrelenting wall of darkness. And still […]
I said elsewhere last night, in all defiance of the axiom about red sunset skies, that the weather was changing. I was right. Today is gray, sky lowering, air infused with a dampness that penetrates. The clouds have wrapped themselves around the peaks, and new snow will be falling at this moment. It’s too warm […]
Today was one of those days where nothing goes as you expect, and yet exactly as you expect — in other words, your schedule is completely upended, conditions fail to match the forecast, and it all happens in some of the most irritating ways possible. I had intended not to have to go anywhere this […]
This morning brought us skies filled with extraordinary asperitas clouds, rolling waves of sheer veil-like gray extending from northeast to southeast. They lasted the whole of the morning, before the trickster winds kicked up at midday, driving hard from the south to break most of the hauntingly beautiful cloudbank apart. Now, we have more turquoise […]
Today has been a mix: a muted dawn, gray clouds limned in coral fire; bright turquoise skies woven with trailing bands of gray; and now, past noon, more sun than clouds to light our small world. It’s also much too warm, each day’s temperature exceeding the last, and the forecast too. The patterns of the […]
Today’s official high was fifty-seven. In truth, it would have gotten well into the sixties, but even at day’s end, our outdoor thermometer on the west side, mounted on a wooden post that absorbs direct sunlight all afternoon, read eighty degrees. That was a matter of hours’-long heat absorption, of course, but toward the end […]
Fifty-four degrees in the latter half of November. The next two days are supposed to be warmer still. We are not forecast to feel the effects of the bomb cyclone/atmospheric river combination currently inundating parts of the West Coast until next week — Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, at least according to current predictions. Should those conditions […]
It’s been such a week, and it’s only Wednesday. The cold in recent days has been hellish, even when the mercury rises to fifty; that’s what happens when spring’s gale-force winds return in fall. Of course, the fifty-degree high is, if less inconvenient, a far more dangerous issue: We’re past the midpoint of November, racing […]
If yesterday was bitter, today is worse: an actual temperature that is genuinely cold, made all the more bitter by a more insistent trickster wind. It feels much more like spring out there today, abundant sun that it’s impossible to enjoy because the gale-force winds make being outdoors a misery, and bring with them a […]
It’s cold today. We got no rain whatsoever last night, and certainly no snow, but the high clouds that veiled the moon produced a small amount of low fog sometime after midnight. Beyond that, it merely deepened the cold, driven this day on a fierce wind that cuts to the bone. It feels like a […]
It’s another beautiful too-warm day: fifty degrees in earliest afternoon, bright blue skies and barely even a hint of a breeze. It’s a far cry from yesterday, when similar temperatures felt like full-on winter, courtesy of gale-force trickster winds that cut to the bone. It’s also, apparently, a far cry from what tonight will bring, […]
This week has been a humbling experience, and today is no exception. It’s true in metaphorical terms, as well, but at the moment, I’m referring specifically to the physical experience of living upon these lands in this threshold season that straddles the lines that we imagine separate fall from winter. In a week when temperatures […]
Friday is finally here. It’s been a rough week, on multiple fronts. I would say that I’m glad for the weekend, and some downtime, but the truth of the matter is that I won’t get any; there’s too much to do, especially at this time of year. Still, there’s the psychological aspect of knowing it’s […]
Today was a gloriously beautiful day . . . completely unsettled and disrupted from beginning to end. That’s actually probably appropriate, because a mid-November day here should not reach sixty degrees; we should be bundled up against highs of thirty or so, perhaps with pewter-gray skies heavy with snow overhead. But we continue to live […]
Yesterday’s wild afternoon weather brought us nothing in the way of precipitation: not a drop, not a flake; only chaotic trickster winds driving the autumn chill bone-deep. By sunset, all but the last traces of cloud had vanished from the skies, leaving us with the glittering cold clarity of night. Today, we have less wind, […]
If yesterday was all stillness and warmth, today’s air is animated by decidedly tricksterish spirits. The actual temperature is much the same, low fifties [which is still very much too warm for mid-November], but high and capricious winds drive the chill bone-deep. It’s a day to stay indoors, one to keep the fire stoked, and […]
It’s a beautiful day. Too warm, mercury already hovering around fifty, but clear and bright, with a a few stray bands of iridescent white to the east and south, mostly shirred contrail remnants blown apart by the wind. Down here below, the wind is a quiet thing, barely the slightest breeze, and the clouds only […]
Today is all blue skies and warming light. The forecast is for a warming trend this week, and clearly it’s already begun: high already in the low fifties, snow virtually gone here, and fading fast even on the peaks. Oh, there are plenty of white patches remaining, but for mid-November, they should all be thoroughly […]
Today, we see the sun again. It’s odd; we’ve had plenty of periods of sun contending with the stormclouds of recent days, and yet, it somehow feels like it’s been a long time since we’ve had a truly sunny day. Even then, it’s only been three or four days, but the deep cold, combined with […]
