Never been to Minneapolis..... Might visit Alaska some day but any move from Fresno will be to be nearer my daughter....not further away.
February for me is out coldest here I am out daily in all of it so just another month, now we are supposed to get most of a week cold rain which I really do not like yet still out in it every day for me, I have to be very careful feeding is about the only change as stock gets frisky in this weather just glad to see me is all, plus all the extra time dressing for the weather and boot cleaning, one thing I do have plenty of clothes for any weather we have. We get a change in March.
I have never liked December since becoming a adult and have always liked and looked forward to January and the New Year
YAY ! Soon be Spring - Spring - Spring ! (that's a funny word for 'Spring' - is it because lambs leap and spring ……. ?)
January is cold here but February is even colder. The only thing that gives February an edge is that it's followed by March, when it sometimes (but by no means always) starts to warm up some.
We usually have more cold in February also; but at least there are some days that make you believe that spring is actually getting closer. And the days are getting longer now, although we do not really feel the effect of that until we get to the time change into daylight savings time, usually in April. I can really see the reasoning of starting a new year in the spring, rather than in the dead of winter. It makes a lot more sense, because everything comes back to life and the year seems like new again once that starts to happen.
That certainly is a point. I have thought about it, too, and came to the conclusion that people nevertheless couldn't resist starting the new year with several festivities around winter solstice (at least in the northern hemisphere) stretching until Candlemas Day signalling the time when they could eat their bread in daylight again. I have a hunch they desperately needed a highlight in their dull winter life when they had nothing else to do anyway. They, thus, picked winter solstice which at least seemed to promise a change for the better i.e. the end of a period with days getting longer every single day. That did not mean, however, that they wouldn't celebrate spring time properly as well. Over here days are longer now but seasons have shifted now more or less ending one month later than they used to, i.e., more often than not, March is a full winter month while it used to be the beginning of spring. In April summer may set in all of a sudden almost eclipsing spring as a season in fact. I can feel the power of the sun on bright days already in contrast to when it's weakest in November/December. Yet we'll just have to wait a little... As I said earlier in this thread, I don't know about January blues but what I do know is that it feels definitely like the longest month of the year. Thank God it's over this very moment.
I have noticed the shift in seasons here as well, @Thomas Stearn. Everything seems to have shifted later by a month.
Yes, January is a long month, February is shorter and its lighter for longer now - Spring is just around the corner, my favourite Season