Edmonds Senior Center

Sunday afternoon the weather cleared so I decided to take a walk around the neighborhood and more particularly, to visit the Edmonds Senior Center, now renamed the Edmonds Waterfront Center. In a previous post, I mentioned that I would show you the new building. It was supposed to be open by now so off I went.

Along the way I kept an eye out for any winter-blooming flowers that might have the courage to bloom this time of year. Sure enough, there were several hardy flowers showing their colors.

A rhododendron, perhaps confused by our warmer marine climate, was showing a few blossoms.

One of our local businesses displays pansies year round. I see other beds of pansies elsewhere on my walks. It seems that even when there is freezing weather, the pansies survive to raise their showy heads again when it warms.

I didn't recognize this bush so tried to find it on the internet. It stumped Google too. Maybe one of you experts could attach a comment telling us what it is?

Found these beautiful roses growing in the protected area on the south side of a building not far from the Waterfront Center. There were a few roses in bloom in the city-maintained flower beds along Sunset Avenue, but they are exposed to the north wind so weren't doing so good. 

The fence was still up around the new Waterfront Center so I had to shoot through the fence in the top photo and you'll just have to ignore it in the bottom photo. 

The building sits on some choice real estate. From where I took this photo, the fishing pier is on the right about a block away and the ferry terminal is behind me, also about a block away. The seagull perched on the roof is looking out over the beach and salt water.

Heading back through the residential neighborhood, I came across this fuschia.

This camelia was doing good, but with the rainy weather we've had lately, I think it won't last long.

As I walked around the nearby park, I saw these nice holly berries. Not flowers, of course, but the bright green shiny leaves and contrasting red berries caught my attention.

Again, these are not flowers, but "flowering kale" is a another source of wayside beauty during the winter.

I watch these flowers bloom all winter long, at least in winters past. I think they are a variety of zinnia, but any of you flower experts feel free to post a correction.

Came across these snowberries alongside the trail around the marsh. After the colors of the flowers, I was impressed by the stark gray and brown foliage contrasting with the white berries.

I'm sorry I couldn't do a proper introduction to the Waterfront Center. Perhaps a sunny day will coincide with some free time and I'll try again after the fence is gone.

Dark Winter Days

After I have a cup of coffee and read the morning paper, I do my morning exercises and yoga. I do the routine using a Wii balance board and my personal routine selected from the Wii software. I bought the Wii setup about eleven years ago and have used it off and on since. For the past seven months I've been doing it faithfully almost every morning. 

The routine consists of ten yoga poses and eight exercises followed by a dozen pushups. The routine is committed to memory so instead of watching the TV screen, I observe the morning scene from the living room windows. 

From these north-facing windows I see what real estate agents call a territorial view. There are two partially vacant lots in the foreground with apartment and condominium buildings beyond. There are several trees and in the middle distance stands a telephone pole that a seagull uses as a lookout and resting spot. I can tell which way the wind blows by watching the seagull land into the wind. If there is little or no wind, it seems to land facing the sun.

This time of year it's usually dark when I do my exercises. A week ago I finished the paper and coffee early and started exercising a little after six. Noticed that we had a clear sky and watched as the day arrived. It was interesting to see the transition from dark to light so thought I'd take photos during the next clear day so I could share the brightening sky with you. 

The next day reverted to our normal winter weather.  I've been hoping for a clear morning but it's been clouds and rain since. This morning, a few hours after the winter equinox, I decided to take photos despite the low clouds and rain.

This was taken at 0659. To the naked eye it was dark with some ambient light from security lights and streetlights, but the camera optimizes what light there is to get the best photo possible without specialized lenses, etc. The branches in the foreground are lighted by the living room lights behind me.

Now we move to 0714. The sky is a little lighter but the trees are still in silhouette and the ground is dark. 

At 0725 the clouds are brighter, the trees are still in silhouette and the fields are still mostly hidden. Above the low apartment building with the two lighted windows on the left side of the photo we see two poles. The pole on the left has crossbars and wires while the one on the right is a bare pole where the seagull likes to land to survey the scene. Those poles are only a block away even though it looks farther. About this time the hummingbirds begin their visits to my feeder. 

At 0735 the trees have shifted to three dimensions, the sky is brighter and we can make out a little color, even though the shaded windows of the apartment still shine with light. The hummingbirds have been busy and now the seagulls and crows are flying. Beginning about now I see occasional pairs of ducks and small flocks of geese flying to the east.

Now it's 0747 and the day is arriving. The lights in the apartment windows are still visible but soon will fade away in the brightening day. About now this morning I saw a rabbit running from my side of the field and scamper into the briar patch in the bottom left. In the spring and summer we watch the rabbits feeding on the green grass and playing in the longer grass to the right of the blackberry thicket. We haven't seen one since late September, so this was a special morning despite the rain. Last spring and summer, on three occasions I saw a coyote in this field so the rabbits have to be careful or they will be a quick breakfast.

Now it's five minutes after official sunrise (0759) and the glow of the apartment windows is gone. 

This photo was taken shortly after the one above, also at 0759. The rain is dripping off my storm flag and there are flood warnings for the local rivers. Typical winter weather for us.

Full daylight, such as it is, arrived around 0825. The light that shines on my flag during the night is controlled by a photocell and turns off when there is enough light to trigger the photocell. On a clear day the light would have gone off shortly before sunrise, but today it was half hour after sunrise before it got bright enough.

Watching night turn to day had me wondering about the relative speed of that change in various places on earth. When I lived in Panama, the twilight periods were quite different. Now I live in Edmonds, Washington at approximately 47.8 degrees North latitude. Today being the shortest day of the year, we have only 8 hours and 25 minutes of daylight. The other 16 hours and 35 minutes are the three kinds of twilight and night. 

Today astronomical twilight (center of sun between 18-12 degrees below horizon) when we can't yet see the horizon and most stars are still visible, lasted from 0602 until 0639. Nautical twilight (center of sun 12-6 degrees below horizon) when the horizon is visible and some stars are still visible lasted from 0639-0719. Civil twilight (center of sun 6-0 degrees below horizon) lasted from 0719-0755 when the it was sunrise. 

Some authorities describe the morning twilights as dawns and the evening twilights as dusks, but I'll keep it simple and refer to those periods as twilight. Another note, nautical twilight was very useful before GPS and other kinds of geo-positioning because it allowed mariners to locate their position by using a sextant, the horizon and astronomical bodies (astronavigation).

I said that the days and twilights were different in Panama. I noticed the same thing in Viet Nam. The twilight periods in the tropics are notable for their shortness compared to those of more temperate climes. This is caused by the speed of the earth's rotation in the particular local. 

The earth spins on its axis approximately once in 24 hours. If you measure the circumference of the earth at the equator and do the math you see that the point on which you are standing is rotating at about 1,037.5 mph. As you move toward the poles, the circumference (following the latitudes) shrinks. Once again, you can do the math (using cosign and multiplication) and find the speed. Here in Edmonds, we are moving at about 631.24 mph. Moving farther north, the distance gets shorter and shorter until at the north pole you can literally encircle the earth with your arms. There the land (water and ice) beneath you is moving not in miles per hour but in inches per hour. 

This speed combined with the angle of the suns rays, gives us the length of the twilights. Here in Edmonds, since we're traveling only about half as fast as people at the equator, the twilights are much longer. 

Interestingly, the maximum northern latitude for astronomical twilight at midnight during the summer solstice (longest day of the year) in the northern hemisphere is 48.56 degrees. At 48.75 degrees, Bellingham just falls within that range and thus is the only large city in the continental US to do so.

Well, that's probably more than you wanted to know about twilight, so I'll stop there and wish you a Merry Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year.

I took this an hour or so ago. I'm sure Iko's orchids are glad they are inside that window instead of out in the deluge we are having today.
    

Beaver Moon

 Last Monday evening and Tuesday morning, we had mostly clear weather. The Beaver moon (traditional name for the November full moon) rose in the northeast and set in the northwest so I had occasion to watch it.

This shot is taken at 1819, Monday, November 30th toward the northeast from my deck. The moon was full but partially hidden by clouds just when I wanted to get a photo.

This shot was taken at 0547 the next morning, Tuesday, Dec 1st. This is my storm flag (approx. 2 x 3 feet) which I fly during the winter months because of the wind and rain.

Here it is 0739 on Tuesday morning. It's been light for twenty minutes or so, but the full moon is still visible.

Today I was walking on the far side of the marsh and noted that the weeping willow trees over there had lost all their leaves. The one in this photo still has most of its leaves. Must be a different microclimate.

After observing the marsh, I turned under the pine trees across the road in the photo above and walked along the boardwalk then down to Railroad Avenue to see how the new Edmonds Senior Center is coming. It is pretty much finished and the grand opening was supposed to be around the end of November but the construction fence is still up so I couldn't go onto the grounds. In a few days I'll walk that way again. The fence should be down by then and I'll introduce you to the new Senior Center.

Continuing north, I passed the ferry terminal then hopped across the tracks and continued north on sunset Avenue. 

The roses that line the parking strip have lost their leaves but there are still a few blooms. I guess they are winter roses. I'll see if they last until winter actually begins on the 21st.

We've had some light frosts even though the temperature on my deck hasn't dropped below 34.5 degrees. It's supposed to rain for the next couple days, but when the weather clears I'll do a blog entry of the hardy flowers that brave the chilly winds and short days to bloom in wintertime Edmonds.