Standard time miles

As noted recently in the comments, the daily sunset is now before 5pm. Well, as of tomorrow morning, the daily sunrise is after 7am. The fact that all of this disturbs me a lot more than it disturbs some people is not news to those who know me. I loathe the loss of daylight. I glory in January which despite its almost always frigid temperatures and massive snowfall amounts also brings the beginning of the return of light. Meanwhile, six more weeks until the winter solstice, this is going to get worse.

Actually, the sunrise has been after 7am almost every day since September 23. However, all of that was with the magic of daylight savings time. That extra hour in the evening is now gone and joining it on the sidelines is anything vaguely resembling daylight in the morning. It is dark, my friends, it is dark.

But today was warm, really warm. I actually had some trouble getting out of the house as it took me a while to reconstruct what the appropriate riding costume is for 60 degrees. That worked itself out in due time and obviously 60 in November presents extremely rideable conditions. I rode, marking the first time this year I have ridden during Central Standard Time. I checked the bike log (again, one of the reasons for keeping a log) and discovered that my very first ride this year was on March 14 which is noted in the log as the first day of DST.

I rode the Capitol Loop and got a picture appropriate to the coming Veterans Day holiday. Here is the State of Minnesota World War II Veterans Memorial, a plaza in front of the Veterans Memorial Service Building (itself a memorial to all Minnesota Veterans of all wars) and also occupying a place of prominence in the Capitol approach area.It is very nice and today was quite serene. Thursday there will be a band, politicians and speeches. Today was probably nicer.

I have mentioned that I thought that the harvesting technique used this year in the local corn field would not lend itself to what has been the practice over the past several spring planting seasons of minimum tillage. As I approached home today I found out that I was right. The use of a plow is maximum tillage and today the plow was in the field.I have not fallen off my bicycle yet this year but I did lean it against a STOP sign while I was taking this picture. The wind blew it over. While it is true that I myself did not go down, allowing this indignity to my bicycle hurts my pride nearly as much as actually falling off would. That is no way to treat a nice bicycle. I am chastened.