That was this morning's sunrise, at about 8:40. It's hard to know exactly because of the cloudbank at the horizon and because the sun is so far to the south that it's obscured behind the cliff. But there you have it.
If it looks cold, that's because it is. How cold? The number depends on the system you use to measure it. Up here, Celsius is the name of the game. I still have to mentally translate from Fahrenheit. And by the way, my mother's rule of thumb to go from C to F, which was "multiple by two and add 30," doesn't work at extremes. For example, 30 C isn't really 90 F--it's something in the 80s--but it's still hot, relatively speaking.
Similarly, this morning was cold. In fact, it was ten below zero at 7:30 this morning. That measurement happens to be in F. It sounds even more impressive in C: about 23 below. But you know, it doesn't really matter. It's freaking cold.
An addendum to the pronunciation discussion: I found a letter from my father to the rest of the family, describing a 1970s-era visit from relatives to the family up here. Our cousin had brought tomatoes from southern Ontario.
According to my father, my mother called them "toe-MAY-toes." Our cousin, southern Ontario born and bred, said "toe-MAH-toes." And to my aunt, who was born in Europe and emigrated to Canada just before World War II, they were "toe-MATT-oes."
Whatever. Here in the cold, I can close my eyes and remember one of the best flavo(u)rs of summer: a BLT of pea-meal bacon and field tomatoes on locally made wheat bread spread with butter. Mmmmmm.
Yikes. I was just startled from my vision of summers past by three deer bounding past, enjoying the snow. Yep, this is paradise.
