Vernal Equinox
Today is the vernal equinox. From the Farmer’s Almanac online:
“Vernal translates to “new” and “fresh,” and equinox derived from the Latin aequus (equal) and nox (night)...Even though we know that after December 21st, the days start getting steadily longer, we still see more darkness than light over the course of a day in those three months leading up to spring. The vernal equinox marks the turning point when daylight begins to win out over darkness. At this moment, the direct rays of the Sun are shining down on the equator producing the effect of equal day and night (give or take a few minutes).”
Yesterday we made it up to 60-degrees F (15-degrees C), which is the warmest day we’ve had in a few months. The last time we were in this ballpark of temperature was on November 1 (I keep track). Today it was 37-degrees at 3 AM (I wake & rise early), and right now as I’m typing this post at 3 PM it’s 66-degrees. So it seems western Montana got the memo about it being spring. It’s worth mentioning too that I am typing this post outside on our covered porch (insert smiley face with hearts circling it here). This day last week we were on the receiving end of 7” of snow. Now it seems perhaps winter is over.
We did a humanure load yesterday, which means we dumped our stockpile of full loo buckets (a total of 11) in our compost bin. And Mike cleaned out our rain barrels and hooked one back up to collect water off the cabin roof. Since we emptied the barrels on November 25 for the purposes of winter, we’ve been collecting rain and snow melt off the roof in 5-gallon buckets, which we’ve been storing inside the cabin. While we will continue to see below freezing temps at night for a little while longer, there’s a good chance we’re done with long, deep freezes now, so we figure we can start storing water outside again.
It was forecasted for us to have a heavy snow and colder winter this year but that did not come to pass. What we wound up with was quite a mild winter for these parts. December was one of the rainiest Decembers Montana has had on record. Here at EM, we recorded a total of 4.55” of rain in the month of December through our rain gauge. I don’t jot down the temperature every day, but we didn’t have any long super cold snaps like we often do here. The lowest temp I recorded was 2-degrees on December 28th, and it didn’t last long.
In the notes I keep, I wrote down that early February was the start of when we could reduce our daily generator run time by half if we had a day of full sun exposure and no clouds. Prior to that, even on a cloudless day, with how low the sun was in the sky, how late it popped up over the mountains and disappeared through the trees, and how narrow our canyon is, we wouldn’t see much in the way of sun-power coming in through our PV panels to make very much of a difference in terms of storage in our batteries. Through the whole of winter, starting in November, we have been averaging 90 minutes a day of generator run time, which fills our house batteries and meets our electricity needs for 24-hours. Based on the generator we have and averaging out the ever-fluctuating price of gas, I’ve estimated we pay around $52 a month in petrol in order to run the generator for the purposes of electricity. Our system is quite small battery and PV panel wise. We have room to grow & expand and we likely will at some point, but for now what we have is working to meet our current needs and is pretty low maintenance.
Since I’ve launched into offering stats and updates, I’ll mention that the one cord of wood we purchased and had delivered on November 12 for $250 is still going strong. We have a good amount still left. Which reminds me to add this to my to-do list: order another one or two cords of wood soon. I incorrectly assumed the guy we got the wood from in November had the wood drying for longer. Note to self: give the wood more time to dry before we need to make use of it next winter.
Today was a butterfly day here at EM. Which is just as delightful as it sounds. There were what I think are fritillary butterflies everywhere! It was enough to make a gal feel like she lives in an enchanted wood. And, well. It’s quite possible we do.
