day length – Mallaband-Brown

What is your favorite season of year? Why?

When Aqualegia (grannies bonnets) and Daffodils and Tulips flower. When the winter rains and frosts abate. When insects start collecting nectar and pollen and the sun rises earlier and sets later. Spring is my favourite season.

Spring refreshes the world, a fizz of flowers shoot up and cover the ground. Leaves sprout and burst from buds, trees are clothed in green again. Not the dark green of summer leaves, but the pale lime greens of new growth.

Not everyone has seasons, towards the equator the day length stays around the same length. The growing season is continuous and forests and jungles can grow to huge sizes. Unfortunately that means that loggers and farmers destroy virgin jungles by removing the trees and replacing them with palm oil plants or growing other crops such as corn and maize. This is destructive and raises the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

So my answer is that I love Spring, it helps me keep track of time. It is enchanting and beautiful. I’m glad I live somewhere that changes, even if it is only for a short time.

When the sum rose this morning it was on the shortest day of the year. Now the days up here in the Northern Hemisphere will slowly start to lengthen again. At first at a minute or two a day, but gradually a few more minutes around spring time. Then as the Summer solstice approaches the number of minutes slows down. Finally after that the process goes into reverse and the days begin to wane again. So the great cycle of light and dark tumbles along North and South. Only on the equator are day and night lengths balanced out. The cause? Earth is tipped at an angle, so for six months of the year one half of the planet gets more light than the other (which also proves the Earth is a globe).

Happy Solstice everyone!