I thought I had a pretty good day yesterday in the neverending fight against entropy (defined as "lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder"). Got some housework done, paid some bills, picked up half the pine cones in the driveway. And we finally had some warm and dry weather, so before the last snrains (that's snow + rains—see yesterday's footnotes) I used the leafblower to herd a lot of leaves onto the lawn. Yesterday I raked some more, brought the lawnmower into the house for a while (seriously—the only way I can get it to start is to warm it up) and then fired 'er up and did some serious leaf mulching. Got the leaves chopped to bits over a wide section of the lawn. Then I went to dinner at my favorite restaurant in Geneva, New York, at the north end of Seneca Lake.
But then FedEx came and delivered the Panasonic G9. When I got home from town and noticed FedEx had been to the house, I naturally also felt the first rain drops. Within an hour it was raining hard, and the rain kept up for hours—like it always does when I rent a camera.
It's not even supposed to rain here at this time of year. It's supposed to snow.
So I woke up this morning and thought, well, at least I got a lot of mulching done yesterday before the rain came. I imagined it was going to be a pleasure to open the shade and gaze out on the clear, clean south end of the front lawn, which was all mulched yesterday. Well, wouldn't you know, the hard rains last evening and last night dropped a whole lot of the brown leaves that were still clinging to the sycamores. And the part of the lawn I had just mulched was covered with leaves again!
Okay, score one for entropy. The wind and the rain took all my hard yardwork of yesterday and neatly undid every bit of it. You have to laugh.
This morning I got up early and made soup, with heirloom beans from Rancho Gordo. It's really good, too. Maybe the best I've ever made. Ate it for lunch. Yum.
Now it's looking like it might clear up, and if it actually does I'm going to go to town, both literally and figuratively, with the new camera.
Sunsets are getting later already
I should mention that this is the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere—the least amount of daylight. But it's not the day with the latest sunrise or earliest sunset. "For us at mid-northern latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere," says EarthSky, "the sequence is: earliest sunset in early December, shortest day at the solstice around December 21, latest sunrise in early January." We'll get just under nine hours of daylight today, leaving 15 hours of darkness. But sunset is already coming three minutes later than it did on December 8th, and it gets better and better from here.
Only 79 more days till daylight savings time!
Mike
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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
Geoff Wittig: "Embrace the entropy! As a teen I tried to convince my father that raking leaves was pointless; waiting a few days would permit the wind to move them to the neighbor's yard, neatly solving the problem. He was sadly not persuadable on this issue.
"Now I live on a (very) windy hilltop about 40 miles from TOP's world headquarters, and I have my satisfaction. We have countless trees, and every breeze no matter how slight from September to December deposits a fresh crop of leaves on our ~5 acres of threadbare grass. There is no way to stay ahead of the steady accumulation. Even my wife has conceded it's an exercise in futility. So now I can blissfully enjoy the leaf fall from the window while sipping coffee."
Tom Burke: "Seven hours and 30 minutes of daylight in Sheffield today, at just over 53° degrees north. Of course, with the mainly dull and rainy day we’ve had, you’d have been hard-pressed to say when daylight began or ended—it sort of leaked into the sky, and then a few hours later, leaked away again. That’s how winter usually is in England—grey, wet, generally not freezing, and little snow. I hate it. And it’s not photographically helpful either.
"And the maximum elevation the sun reached on mid-winter’s day here: 13° above the horizon!"
Rick Popham: "I think the arrival of my rental G9 has reinforced and multiplied the rain production of your rental G9, because it's raining like hell here in Connecticut—and I have the day off. Oh well, if it was snow we'd be buried in it. One of the things I want to test with the G9 is the effectiveness of its IBIS. My Olympus 40–150 ƒ/2.8, like most of the Olympus lenses, doesn't have stabilization in the lens. But the body stabilization in the Olympus cameras is so good that it works very well with that lens, even at the long end. So the comparison will be interesting (to me, at least).
"Here's to drier weather and photogenic subjects! Merry Christmas to all TOPers!"
Mike replies: And to you.
Ed Donnelly: "Well don't leave us hanging! How about the recipe for the best soup you ever made? :-) "
Mike replies: I'll try. Start with 1 16-oz. package of Rancho Gordo Yellow Indian Woman heirloom beans. Check beans for any foreign matter, rinse well, then cover with 2–3 inches of water (they expand a lot) and soak overnight. In a large pot, sauté 3–4 cups mirepoix (I buy storebought from our excellent Wegman's grocery store but of course you can make your own) in a small amount of oil for five minutes, adding 4 cloves minced garlic for the last two minutes. Dump in the beans along with their soaking water, add 2 bay leaves and half a teaspoon of oregano, and boil briskly for five minutes. Reduce to a simmer (covered) for 1.5 hours, stirring occasionally. You'll have to add more boiling water as it cooks.
Then add 1 can organic petite diced tomatoes, 2/3 cup uncooked brown rice (I use RiceSelect Texmati organic brown rice) 3 more cloves minced garlic, 1/2 tsp. ground turmeric, 1 tsp. salt, 5 turns from the pepper grinder, and the juice of half a lemon. Bring to a boil again, then simmer for an additional 35 minutes. Remove the bay leaves. Salt to taste before eating. Allow the excess to cool at room temperature, then refrigerate. Keeps for a week or a little more.
Hotspur Closser: "When I think of entropy, I always come back to Yeats: 'Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.' And as far as the solstice goes, why does the shortest day of the year feel like the longest? It doesn’t seem right."
Mike replies: I don't know what the other nine are, but that's one of the ten poems everyone should be familiar with.
I noticed several years ago that the days stop getting shorter a little before the solstice and the daylight time remains constant for several days but the sunrise/sunset times shift ahead slightly (a few minutes) before the days start growing longer again. I never bothered to check before but it appears that it is so. https://bobmoler.wordpress.com/2015/01/10/how-come-hours-of-daylight-changes-very-slowly-around-the-solstice-but-very-rapidly-around-the-equinoxes/
Posted by: James Bullard | Friday, 21 December 2018 at 02:02 PM
You forgot to mention your time strolling around the house with the new camera photographing crazy things like lamps, door knobs, chairs, etc. with your new camera and then cycling through all the photos you will never print but had to make! Oh wait, am I alone in that sort of behavior?
[See the later "G9 IS" post. You are not alone. --Mike]
Posted by: Dave Karp | Friday, 21 December 2018 at 02:07 PM
That would be Halsey's restaurant, right?
Posted by: Chris Beloin | Friday, 21 December 2018 at 03:39 PM
As you know, fighting entropy is like trying to beat the house — in the end, entropy always wins.
Posted by: Ben Rosengart | Friday, 21 December 2018 at 04:04 PM
Sisyphus and the dead leaves! An homeric battle...and you can made a very nice compost for your kitchen garden: practical ecology.
Posted by: Jlesalvignol | Friday, 21 December 2018 at 05:10 PM
Only 79 more days till daylight savings time!
What is this Daylight Savings Time of which you speak?
Here in Arizona we remain on Mountain Standard Time year round for better or worse.
It's fine in the winter. But with sunrise shortly after 4 a.m. in June it's just...weird.
Posted by: DavidB | Friday, 21 December 2018 at 06:29 PM
Case of the stuck Sunrise...
I'm guessing most photographers know this...
Just a few days after the solstice, Earth is at perihelion, its closest point to Sun. As Earth gets closer to Sun, Earth "moves" faster, and Earth is moving so fast at perihelion that the apparent position of SUN is stationary for a week or so... Perihelion is on January 2
Sunrise
21 7:48 am
22 7:48 am
23 7:49 am
24 7:49 am
25 7:49 am
26 7:50 am
27 7:50 am
28 7:50 am
29 7:50 am
30 7:51 am
31 7:51 am
1 7:51 am
2 7:51 am
3 7:51 am
4 7:51 am
5 7:51 am
Check out the data from
https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/vancouver?month=12&year=2018
Zoom, Zoom!
Posted by: Garry Stasiuk | Friday, 21 December 2018 at 07:51 PM
My fav entropy quote: The greatest of tasks, the momentary holding back of entropy.
But while I found the quote in my gnotes, I've lost the author!! Sorry about that part.
Ray H.
Posted by: Ray L Hudson | Friday, 21 December 2018 at 08:00 PM
Good call goes to James Weekes for commenting on this very thing in the previous post. In regards to the lawnmower, I've found that a spray can of starting fluid works wonders on small 4 cycle engines, especially those that sit a while where there is no fuel immediately available to the carburetor. Simply remove the cover from the air cleaner, spray a shot into the carburetor, pull the cord. You may need to continue "feeding" the carburetor for a second or two until fresh fuel is pumped in and the engine runs on it's own. Replace the air cleaner and your ready to go. Beats the hell out of pulling on a cord repeatedly while cursing the existence of internal combustion engines.
Posted by: Keith | Friday, 21 December 2018 at 08:58 PM
Entropy can be reversed, but only with the expenditure of energy. It feels like a losing battle though.
"Only 79 more days till daylight savings time!"
It is "saving" not "savings" -- entropy at work here too.
Thanks for the great posts and happy solstice.
Posted by: PacNW | Saturday, 22 December 2018 at 08:30 AM
You cannot win the battle against Entropy. To do so would violate the Law.
Posted by: Peter Gilbert | Saturday, 22 December 2018 at 09:07 AM