Winter has arrived

Somewhere between summer and winter here, fall happens. It's completely indiscernible except for a slow decent into cold weather. There are some fine days, then some wet and cold days and then the latter grow more frequent until you find yourself with a majority of wet and cold days, and that's when you know it's finally winter. Or is it still fall? Hard to say. Spring is like that too, just in reverse.

So the way we tell it's winter is when we have our first fire in the fireplace. It smokes us out because the fireplace doesn't draw well, but we do it anyway. Our house smells like a campfire for days afterwards.  We start to use the little panel heaters in the bedrooms so that at night we can be warm. But the rest of the house has not central heat so we bundle up and walk around in our jackets when we are home.

Another way to tell that it's winter here is that my job slows down. The lizards go into semi-hibernation and so does my field work. Which is fine by me. More time for rainbow surfing. Though my feet now freeze within a half hour. 

"Double" rainbow

The girls now have indoor play dates. Quinn and her friend Amelia drew portraits of each other (Quinn's also includes herself and Wren).

Hunker down and batten the hatches time of year now as the storms roll in.