Observations

Merry Christmas a few days late.  Meran and I have been doing well aside from passing a cold back and forth a couple of times.  We had a very quiet Christmas morning just the two of us.  In the afternoon Meran’s sister and nieces and nephew came over. We played games and had dinner together before they left. I definitely missed being around my family.  Whenever it snows more than a couple inches, I get to drive the tractor and plow the road and our driveway.  I enjoy plowing but not when its dark outside. I haven’t been up on the hill in the past couple weeks since I know my car wouldn’t make it in the mud/snow but when I was last up there the fire, from almost 2 months ago now, was still smoldering away.  I would not be surprised if it still is going. See my last post about the fire.

1. Winter weather here is much more “stable” than Denver.  Back in Denver, temperatures would differ at least 20 degrees from night to day and it would not be out of the norm to have a high of 15 one day and 60 the next.  Here in north Idaho, it seems rare to have the temperature dip more than 10 degrees overnight and certainly not the drastic day to day changes.  The consistency is very odd.  And the snow sticks around unlike Denver.  There has been snow on the ground ever since the first snow several weeks ago.  And it is not because the snow is constantly falling but because it just doesn’t evaporate or melt as fast as it does in Denver. Precipitation forecasts are just as unreliable here though.  Between last night and today, we were supposed to have 9+ inches of snow.  As of noon today, it seems we will only be getting 3-4 inches.
   

   Look how steady the temp is in Sandpoint
2. Wildlife is more abundant.  There are deer tracks all over the yard.  I am sure this is because of how remote we are but still I am not used to having deer standing 20 feet from my front door when I leave the house.  A couple months ago, our neighbor reported seeing a bear not far from our house.  I haven’t seen any bear in person though.  Also before moving to Idaho, I had seen an eagle in the wild only one time.  Now over the past few weeks, I have seen them almost every day on the way to work.
   

   No, I didn’t take the picture.  But I could have taken something very similar had I had a camera handy and it not be so dark.

3. Days are shorter.  I had noticed that the amount of daylight has been less here than Denver but I hadn’t thought about looking up how much shorter it was until recently.  Turns out the days are currently a full hour shorter than Denver.  Meran and I leave the house at 7am and the sun is just rising by the time we get to work.  When we leave at about 5:30, the sun has been set for over an hour.  And it is Dark at night. Denver has so much light pollution that even while living in a basement with all the lights off, there seemed to be more light than here in north Idaho.  I like the dark as it makes for good stargazing when it is clear but that doesn’t happen very often unlike Denver.  The short days is something that is beginning to get to me.