Today the sun sets at 4:32pm. It will rise at 7:36am tomorrow. 

I haven't contacted Bob MacDonald yet, so I'm continuing my scrupulous research on my iPhone. We have gained 5min. on the set side and a whopping 11min on the rise since the last blog. One of my questions for Bob is thus nearing an answer. There's no consistency in the amount of change between morning and evening. This study of mine is idle, of course, but it is helping me appreciate the plight of all scientists. Science requires strict attention to minutiae, patience and an ability to drop what you thought and turn the ship around to take advantage of new evidence. Maybe I should volunteer to work with Bonnie Henry's Covid team. 

But then maybe not. My training period has been just over a month and my only equipment is an iPhone which indicates that it is snowing now in Vernon while a quick look out the window reveals that it is not. 

To the extent that my calculations are accurate; however, there is some good news. Since Winter Solstice, we have gained 55 minutes of sunlight per day. Much of it has been behind cloud, but not all. I have widened the range of my walks from the Black Rock and Polson Park to include two beaches and Kal Park. We have so little snow that you can walk on frozen sand along both Kin Beach and Kal Beach and even dip your boots in the water. 

Biden is busy signing executive orders to overturn the executive orders of the former president who shall go nameless here. It's such a joy not to hear from him that I will follow the lead of Putin who refuses even to name his rival Alexis Navalny.  Covid and its variants continue to trouble the world and the slowing down of shipments of vaccines is making news in Canada. 

As I have lots of time these days I'm indulging my idle interest in how the age we live in fits into the pattern of human life through time on this planet. I remember how, when Jim and I watched the HBO series 'Deadwood', I was levelled by the last show in which the loves, struggles and mendacity in the small western town which had entertained us for hours were trampled to insignificance in an instant by the arrival of the train and the grander schemes from the east. At this and at many other moments in my life I've been fascinated by the simultaneous importance and insignificance of our actions in daily life. I love Stephen Leacock's stories for this reason. They are humane and funny and I see myself and our world in them. So a few weeks ago, when I came upon the book, Why The West Rules -For Now by Ian Morris while sorting books as a volunteer with Vernon Friends of the Library, I paid my $2.00 and took it home. I've been reading it slowly since. Much of it I forget soon after reading, but he writes well. I am enjoying the book and managing to appreciate some of the recurring trends in human history that his years of study enable him to present. Human history is moved by  big wheels and little cogs, but both are ultimately subject to much larger natural forces. Morris believes that individuals are each unique but that in groups they act in very similar ways no matter where in the world or when in history they live.