Mar 20 2023 - Spring Arrivals

What is the significant Spring arrival this week?  Spring itself arrives today around 5:30pm DST.   A little Crocus tommasinianus is blooming in my garden, along with Iris Reticulata, Snow drops and Winter aconite.  That's the garden story.   Trump's arrest would likely be the big event. It is reported that he posted in all-caps on his Truth Social platform:  "ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK."  The prospect of Trump’s arrest—the first in history for a former president—raises questions about the process Trump would be subject to during his arrest and trial—including whether any extraordinary measures would be in place. TIME spoke to legal experts about each step of the process and outline it HERE.  Can you imagine Trump walking into the front entrance of a courthouse or police station?  Can you imagine jury selection?  Wouldn't the majority of people have some opinion? Or multiple opinions. So we await the revelation of the Trump prophecy. And for the equinox news?  It is pagan festival time. According to the BBC, "this turn in the seasons has been celebrated by cultures throughout history who held festivals for their gods and goddesses at this time of year. Aphrodite from Cyprus, Hathor from Egypt and Ostara of Scandinavia. The Celts continued the tradition with festivities at this time of year.  Today, Pagans continue to celebrate the coming of Spring" Ostara is continued to be used as its festival title today.  Poor Stonehenge - it is a commercialized tourist destination.  Look through all those tour listings.  The English Heritage website says that the Solstice will be celebrated at sunrise on Tuesday 21 March.   We can go to skycap HERE. This shows the ambient, skyscape and tour views.  Click on the about at the bottom left and find out about the website developed by English Heritage.

Here are the garden club spring gardeners on Saturday.  They are planting the pots that will hang along the main street in Grimsby.

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Mar 20 2022 - SPRING NOW

 

It is spring today at 11:33am.  It is autumn today at 3:33 Australian Eastern Daylight Time. Two different experiences.  As we are in the northern hemisphere, everything relates to the spring equinox.  Stonehenge is the icon of the season change.  We have to go to Twitter to see what's happening.  The pictures are great with a beautiful sunrise and daffodils everywhere.  We in North America are less inclined towards the musical.  Our gardener's joke of the season seems proof of that.

And then the name Equinox is sprinkled far and wide, just like fairy dust. The Chevrolet Equinox is a series of mid-size, later compact crossover SUVs from Chevrolet introduced in 2004. They are still available, and you can find them right after the solar equinox.  We could ask this question and get a car answer:  What's the difference between a Solstice and an Equinox? More Equinox vehicles include an ATV EMS transport, an ATV Coach MPV and all kinds of industrial trailers, car tops, sports sleds and various sports things. The Equinox Group's Luxury Fitness Club - It's not fitness, it's life. Sounds more like a vacation and the picture on the website has a young woman running through the air way up in the trees.  There are a lot of companies in the Equinox Group - 193 in total.  They hog the internet retrieval space. I expect there's an Equinox named company in most  industries.  There's a publishing company, a cruise ship named the Celebrity Equinox. Today is our day to celebrate Spring and the weather it promises.  Get over to twitter and watch the dancing.    Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

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Sep 18 2021 - Equinox News

 

The actual day and night occurring 12 hours long or being equal occurs a few days after the autumnal equinox.  Doesn't the "Celestial Equator" sound romantic?  The Sun crosses the celestial equator going southward and rises exactly due east and sets exactly due west.  The northern and southern hemispheres are equally illuminated.  So much symmetry. Wikipedia tells me that there are temporary disruptions of communications satellites.  There are a few days around the equinox when the Sun goes directly behind satellites relative to Earth for a short period each day.   The Sun's immense power and broad radiation spectrum overload Earth station reception circuits with noise and, depending on antenna size and other factors, temporarily disrupt or degrade the circuit. The duration of those effects varies but can range from a few minutes to an hour. You can see articles on why your TV, radio and internet might be disrupted during an equinox.  And then you can see articles on the Chevrolet Equinox, and on the company Equinox Gold - that company is really in the news. The bridge to autumn - this is at Butchart Gardens in the Japanese Garden.  We visited in 2019.

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Autumn? Wait for It

Don't we think of Autumn as starting on September 21st?  Well this year it starts on Monday, September 23rd. It will begin at 3:50 am. So should you start practicing to balance an egg on its end in preparation for the day? It is said that it will be easier to balance the egg vertically on a flat surface on the equinox days.  This is a myth - the amount of sunlight has no power over the gravitational pull of the Earth or our abilities to balance things on it.  The story goes that if you are good at balancing things, you can balance an egg on its end any day of the year. I haven't seen the Google car. These cars have been everywhere regularly.  How could I not have seen it? It would help if I knew what the google car looks like. How do you become a Google Street Map driver?  The story goes that Google puts out ads on Craigslist, Adecco, and similar sites with a generic job title - 'City block driver' is an example. Drivers have quotas to meet, driving from a starting point to a destination point.  They have difficulties and hazards with the job.  There are many who don't want streets or people mapped. Here's a picture that looks like a swarming - who know if it is friendly or the opposite.  Places and people have tried to stop Google from taking Street Map images of their places.  Even Mark Zuckerberg. And there are the strange things that are captured.  Here's the famous 'God Sighting' - or maybe it is Mary and Jesus - click on this YouTube link  to see that one. You can see some of the weird, rude, disturbing sightings.   Here are some in the mashable.com article HERE.  They have titles such as: Bums up for Google Italian cycling apparel Marriage in Rome  Death in Rome (weird costumes abound) We've touched on Google Street View. There are unusual Google Earth Map images such as the airplane boneyard, mysterious desert pattern, swastika-shaped building complex, Giant Triangle, and many more. Today's picture comes from our airplane ride travelling from Sacramento to Seattle.  I assume this is Mount Rainier.  It's in the articles on the 7 most scenic US Plane rides.  It was great to be able to get a picture of it.

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TIMEANDDATE Today!

Can you imagine that there are 'things you need to know' about fall?  That headline comes from National Geographic.  So I headed out to find the top 5 things I would really need to know.  I didn't find 5 things - I found one fact that was most interesting from timeanddate.com.   4.The Equinox is a Specific Moment... Contrary to popular belief, equinoxes are no day-long events, even though many cultures choose to celebrate it as such. Instead, they occur at the exact moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator – the imaginary line in the sky above the Earth’s Equator. At this instant, the Earth's rotational axis is neither tilted away from nor towards the Sun. And the moment?  10:21 am ET. Our pictures today come from the side of a passenger car at the Sandy River Railroad, showing the wear and tear of time on the surface paint.

When Does Spring Start?

The sun is rising on a snow-covered garden, and I find out that for the weatherman, spring starts on March 1st.  There are different definitions of spring. Meteorological spring references a standardized split up of the seasons into four, 3-month periods.  Astronomical seasons are based on the solstices and equinoxes that occur around the year. Today's pictures are the entries in the Betterphoto contest that placed for the month of January.  The first is the second place winner in the Details and Macro category.  The other two are Finalists.  View this email in your browser

How Long is a Day

The Autumn Equinox this year is Wednesday September 23rd.  This is the day when the night and day are nearly exactly the same length - 12 hours - all over the world.  Equinox comes from Latin, meaning 'equal night'. The equinoxes marks the exact moment twice a year when the Earth's axis is not tilted toward or away from the Sun at all. However, the axis tilt of around 23.4 degrees toward the celestial pole, remains the same. On the equator, the day and night stay approximately the same length all year round, but the day will always appear a little longer than 12 hours, due to the reasons below. On the equinoxes, the geometric center of the sun is above the horizon for 12 hours, and you might think that the length of the day (hours of daylight) would be 12 hours too. However, ‘sunrise’ is defined as the moment the upper edge of the sun's disk becomes visible above the horizon – not when the center of the sun is visible. In the same sense, ‘sunset’ refers to the moment the Sun's upper edge, not the center, disappears below the horizon. The time it takes for the sun to fully rise and set, which is several minutes, is added to the day and subtracted from the night, and therefore the equinox day lasts a little longer than 12 hours. Another reason why the day is longer than 12 hours on an equinox is that the Earth's atmosphere refracts sunlight. This refraction, or bending of the light, causes the Sun’s upper edge to be visible from Earth several minutes before the edge actually reaches the horizon. The same thing happens at sunset, when you can see the sun for several minutes after it has actually dipped under the horizon. This causes every day on Earth – including the days of the equinoxes – to be at least 6 minutes longer than it would have been without this refraction.