My blog about knitting, teaching, and being a mother to two energetic young boys.

Monday, March 8, 2010

I Love March!

Hands down, I think March is my favorite month of the year. It doesn't have Christmas, nor Thanksgiving (my favorite holiday), and sometimes not Easter (favorite candy) - but for me, March is my favorite month because it heralds the end of winter & return of the light. Cliche perhaps, but for us Alaskans a welcome respite. I know the official 'return of the light' occurs after winter solstice, but for us, the gain of 5 seconds of daylight is merely a tease.

I love it primarily for this:

Do you see that big, bright thing up in the sky? High in the sky? I've heard rumor that such a celestial body exists. I'm pretty sure it's the sun - that "Great Big Ball of Super Heated Gas" (my apologies to "They Might Be Giants"); I might need to confer with NASA.

See those mountains below the sun? They shield the sun from us here on the 'eastside' for most of the winter. When the sun does "rise" it normally does so well south of where we live - essentially to the very right of the photo & then it doesn't get very high, nor very bright.

Raja concurs with Holly Jo's cat - the sunshine is very much appreciated.

During March the sun is high enough & at the appropriate angle that the rays actually feel warm. The sun rises at a decent time that it's light when I take the kids to school. The sun stays up long enough so that I can come home before it's dark. Spring break for our school district occurs during March. The kids can go outside & play for extended periods of time - often without having to wear tons of layers in March. My oldest son was born in March. Yes - for many reasons March is a great month. The fact that summer vacation is here in 8 weeks is an added bonus.

I just had to include this photo. This is a "giant street snow blower" (for lack of the official name) that came to clear our street yesterday. The kids thought it was so cool (as they observed from a very sizable distance) as it created nice tall berms of snow for them to play on. The down side was that it also filled in their dug out snow fort with tons of snow. Oh well - we adults certainly appreciate the clear streets.

Ugg - just checked the calendar & see that "Daylight Savings Time" is this weekend. Bah - what party poopers! DST is just absurd up here!

Okay - off to play Blockus with the kids & get back to knitting on my Spring Break project.

~Ciao!

2 comments:

Caroline said...

I live in Central California and have an ex-student who is attending college in Fairbanks. She loves it, but that whole not seeing the sun thing was beginning to get to her. Oh, and I really don't like the end of Daylight Savings Time either. It's hard enough to get up in the morning as it is.

Holly Jo said...

My kids LIVE for when that snow auger passes through our neighborhood. They love it.

I'm with you. March is bright enough and warmish enough to enjoy the outdoor winter activities and I love it. :)