The end of the sun

Sunset January 28, 2017

Can you see the sun?

Although the temperature gets up into the 70’s by mid-morning, it’s down to the low 50’s or high 40’s at night and the apartment doesn’t warm up all day.  I am always looking for the sunspot. The sun comes on the back porch between 7 and 9 a.m. and I have been taking my station there every morning to accumulate some therms.  So glad for my sheepskin boots and warm hat.

They have honored me with a desk in the faculty offices, a big open room divided by 3 foot high partitions, but almost no faculty is ever seen there. Students will bring their work directly to the professor's house sometimes.  I think the person in the space designated for my station never comes and they put a secondary desk in the space.  Near the window.  The sun shines in every day after my Hebrew class, so I am bound to be there.  By lunchtime, the sun is shining in the general area of my front door, and I open it and sit on the edge of the couch nearest the door.

By 2:30 pm it’s time to close all the doors and curtains and keep what warmth is available inside.  There are still areas on campus where the sun is shining later in the afternoon and I take a walk to warm up.

However lately, a different phenomenon has affected the sunspot.  Apparently the farmers on the hillsides begin burning the dry grass around this time of year.  The other day I was standing on the back porch and I could see the smoke rising from between the ridges.  I could smell it even before I saw it.  In spite of the fact that these fires will run up and down the hillsides at will (the students have already gone and dug firebreaks on the ridge coming up towards the college to help protect the ubiquitous garden plots behind every apartment building), the farmers burn the dry grass because it forces new grass to grow which they need to feed their cows. It also appears that some people set fire to the dry grass for 'mischief' and the government is asking people to monitor the situation and report any burning that they see.

The daytime temperature difference is noticeable.  Sometimes the light is just diffuse amid the haze; sometimes the sun is actually visible.  Many people here say that it is just fog.  But it is no as longer warm as it was  and it will probably remain this way until the rains begin in March or April.