Happy Winter Solstice to the Northern Hemisphere and happy Mid Summer to everyone south of the Equator!

I took this photo at noon in front of my greenhouse door. That is the highest the sun climbed here today.

Wow! Beautiful.

Believe it or not it's pretty low here in Texas too.
Looks beautiful.

Happy winter solstice. I'm looking forward to the days growing longer. It's only 88 days until Spring.

I recall the time a new guy in Alaska asked me when the sun came up.
I asked what time is it?
He said 1 o'clock.
I said an hour ago, you won't see the sun for a few weeks.
He was flabbergasted and it was 30 below too.

I forgot to mention he was from Tampa Bay Florida.

Happy Solstice! I'm glad to see you caught a few rays.
We're having a wet and windy one, 10C/ 50F and southerly winds gusting 85kph at the present.
December skies have been lovely though, both evening and morning. Today shortest at 8 hours and almost 26 minutes long.
The full moon was brilliant last week, almost brighter than some days LOL, and lingered in the morning sky.
Best wishes to all for a safe, healthy and happy year in 2025.

Hi Bower,
I once arranged to do an overnight hike on the Full Moon nearest the longest day. The moonlight that night was useless. …. The moon was small and hardly got off the horizon. THAT is when I learned that when the Sun takes a high track across the sky the Full Moon takes a low one.
Thus enlightened, I repeated the walk on the first full moon after the Autumn Equinox. The moonlight was superb. We set off two hours after Moon rise and finished two hours before Moon Set. The only time I used my head torch was to change the batteries in my camera. All of a sudden, the name Hunter's Moon made perfect sense!

Tim DH

As a kid and teenager during these winter full moonlit nights I would travel for miles in the forest with snow on the ground.
One route was over a mountain and down the other side to two sisters house I knew.
I was followed by lord only knows what some times.
Possibly a mountain lion.
I would stop walking and it would stop walking.
I would follow the same route back and see big cat tracks in my trail.
Sounds like a tall tale but it's true.
It was pretty desolate or unpopulated where I lived.

Sisu got you's this far; we welcome the return of Helios!

The Gotch

I'm going to miss the short days and longer nights.

worth1 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 21, 2024 5:21 pm I'm going to miss the short days and longer nights.

4h 40min is a bit too short for me. I start feeling more energetic in February with the added light. I do not like shoveling snow, but the white snow cover makes the darkness bearable with the reflected light. Especially moon light on snow looks magical.

worth1 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 21, 2024 5:21 pm I'm going to miss the short days and longer nights.

There we are on opposite sides again, Worth, that is unless I missed sarcasm in the post. I relish the long periods of daylight and like the ancient ones, celebrate the return of the sun.

Paulf wrote: ↑Sun Dec 22, 2024 1:10 pm

worth1 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 21, 2024 5:21 pm I'm going to miss the short days and longer nights.

There we are on opposite sides again, Worth, that is unless I missed sarcasm in the post. I relish the long periods of daylight and like the ancient ones, celebrate the return of the sun.

No it's the unrelenting fireball that takes forever to go down especially with daylight savings time.
The heat can become unbearable.
I prefer a happy medium.

My sleep time is from 1 am to 9 am. My outdoor work time is noon to 9pm. I love daylight hours until 10 pm. For me double daylight savings time would be perfect. It gets hot here but nothing like Texas or Florida heat.

Waking up to 80 something degrees before sunrise is horrible.

worth1 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 22, 2024 4:49 pm Waking up to 80 something degrees before sunrise is horrible.

Yeah, that’s not for me !