The sun rose at 7:27 am and will set at 8:27 for 13 hours of daylight. What’s more, the air flow has shifted from northerly, off the frozen Arctic Ocean, to southwest, off the Pacific and Bering, and it’s warmed up almost to freezing. The noon sun is high—almost 28° above the horizon—and sunglasses are a necessity outdoors. Highs next week are predicted to be near or actually above freezing, so I hope we can forget 40 below for the rest of this winter.

The clean snow still shows no sign of melting, but where it is dirty, the sun is eating a honeycomb structure into any south-facing slopes. Luckily the main roads are bare, and the plows have scraped back the berms along the sides enough that what little meltwater there is does not run across the road. There is still white ice at intersections, and the roads were really slick yesterday wherever the pavement had residual ice and snow.

The engineering students at the university build an ice arch every year. After over 40 years up here, I have to say I’m not too impressed with this year’s effort.  But it’s another sign of spring.

(P.S. March 27–all but the anchored corner of the snow festoon collapsed yesterday afternoon.)

#WriteMotivation. My goals for March were:

1. Learn to use at least one legal method of getting images other than photos I’ve taken on my blog. (I’d love to have some shots of Africa on Jarn’s Journal, for instance.) I’ve found 2, not counting using photos from a friend.

2. Continue to blog at least 5 days a week. (I’m doing 7 now, but I’ve signed up for a number of adult classes in March.) March 30 and 31 are the only two days I don’t have a blog either published or scheduled, and I know what I’ll be writing for those.

3. Edit Chs 2 and 9 of my WIP to give more showing, less telling. Done! I finally got to Chapter 9 yesterday morning.

4. Participate in at least one Platform-building challenge–hesitate to commit for more without knowing what they are. The first one’s supposed to be out today.

I did both.

Now if I can just get my taxes done…