Length Of Days

Today is just like yesterday. At least in terms of the length of the day. That means tomorrow will have a little less sunlight. The transfer to shorter days comes way too early in the summer for me. I want the summer evenings to linger, the light to illuminate the Wiffle ball field just an inning or two longer. I'd like to spend just another 15 minutes or so wading in the river and watching the kids build sand castles as dusk settles before sending us home, prematurely if you ask me.

Here in the South we have a little less summer sun than I'm used to. Not in terms of intensity -- on Saturday the heat coupled with the humidity (called the heat index) set us ablaze at 100 degrees by noon -- but in terms of minutes. Today in Gloucester the sun emerged from Chesapeake Bay at 5:46 a.m. It dropped beyond the leafy trees to the west of us at 8:30 p.m. It's different than what I'm used to as a native Oregonian, and something I noticed when we moved here to Virginia. In comparison, today in Corvallis the sun poked above the Cascades Range at 5:28 a.m. and dropped down behind the Coast Range at 9:02 p.m. That's 50 extra minutes of sunshine, including a bonus 32 minutes at the end of the day. When we lived in Ontario, Ore., I marveled at how long it stayed light in the summer; today sunset is scheduled for 9:35 p.m. That's simply by quirk, really. Ontario nearly hugs the imaginary line dividing the Pacific and Mountain time zones. Unity, just on the other side of the line, has sunset fall at 8:41 p.m.

All this to say I love my summer sunlight. Hope you do, too.