June Solstice
Today is the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
Over 17 hours of daylight in this area!
A beautiful day today, sunny with some breeze and the occasional cloud. It is 20C at 19:00 (7:00 p.m. local).
You can use The Farmer's Almanac Sunrise and Sunset Calculator
to determine how many hours of sunlight you’ll get in your location during the solstice.
Atronomy Picture of the Day: Sunrise Solstice over Stonehenge
From the Valley
Getting Ready for Summer
Snow has meted away and temperatures are rising. The ground is thawed enough to begin preparation for a new gardening season. Summers are short here in Northern Alberta but the days are long and getting longer, so we need to take advantage of good weather when we can. Start as soon as the ground is workable!
Mild Winter, then February hit
All of Alberta and most of western Canada experienced deadly cold temperatures the second week of February. Extremely cold wind chill values between minus 40 and minus 55 continued until February 19 here in northern Alberta. Then a few days later the daytime temperature actually went above zero!
Wet Summer, Great Fall
We had a great deal of rain in June and July. My rain gauge by my garden showed 6.4 inches (162 mm) of rain from June 1st to June 8. It rained so much some of my potato plants were under water! I had to dig some trenches for the water to flow away. The first week of August hot, the last week of August cool with night-time temperatures below 5 C. September and October were moderately cool and quite dry (typically we get rain with resulting layers of ice). Our first real snowfall was last week, amazing for our location.
The Ent
I refer to this old Jack Pine as "The Ent".
This is of the oldest trees on our property.
I had to stitch a couple of photos together to capture its full height.
Jack Pine - Southern Research USDA
Plant Guide - Jack Pine (PDF) USDA
Managing jack pine forests University of Minnesota Extension
COVID-19
Alberta COVID-19 coronavirus information