Image by WordWarrior2 from Pixabay

It was -36° when I got up this morning, wind chill -47°. Those numbers are on the Celsius scale, but the Fahrenheit numbers don’t look any better: -33° and -52° wind chill. This is the depth of winter, the whole week is supposed to be like this.

There can be advantages to days like this.  Several years ago we were renovating our kitchen, dining room and front bathroom and the time had come to pick out new flooring. We drove into Saskatoon on a day like this and checked out the selection in four stores. In each place the parking lot was close to empty and  we had the undivided attention of the sales person. We found something we both liked, and it was on sale.

First thing every morning when I get up  I go to my office and  plug in my phone. This morning it was charging very slowly. After an hour and a half I unplugged it, took it to the kitchen and plugged it into my wife’s charge cord. In half an hour it was fully charged. Must be the electrons were flowing sluggishly in the office.

Or maybe the charger is dying. Does that mean it’s time for a new phone? The protective case I put on this phone when it was new is now missing two of its corners. Maybe that’s another sign that it’s  time to trade it in. Or maybe not. Maybe these are just idle thoughts on a frosty morning.

Even our cats have shown no interest in going outside this morning. They were out for twenty minutes yesterday afternoon and that seems to have satisfied their taste for adventure.

Nevertheless, we have reason to hope for better days. Today we have two minutes and 15 seconds more daylight than we did yesterday. Tomorrow will be two minutes and 20 seconds longer. Soon the daylight hours will be increasing by more than three minutes a day.  We know the sunshine is going to win this battle, but we will have to endure weeks of cold and snow before the glorious springtime.

Where is global warming when you need it? Some very smart people are saying that the temperature in Canada is rising twice as fast as the rest of the world. I hadn’t noticed. The first summer we were back in Saskatchewan we had a few days when the temperature reached 37° (that is body temperature in Celsius, 98.6° F). That was in 1998 and we haven’t had temperatures that hot since.

Turns out that the temperatures in Kazakhstan, Nicaragua and every other country in the world are also rising twice is fast as the average for the rest of the world. How is that possible? The rest of the world includes the oceans.

© Bob Goodnough, January 14, 2020