February 2023
February 2nd
We report: this is a cloudy day, mostly. There has not been even a little bit of blue sky to spot, so really, this is a very cloudy day. Sometimes though, we look outside and the sun is casting shadows, and we feel the need to squint as light floods the street. Sunny cloudy day.
February 1st
We report big sky shenanigans, all day long, forever. We saw grainy, black-and-white pictures of the clouds on Mars, once. We look at ours and we think we like them better, and we like our blue sky better, but the idea of clouds on a different planet is still mind-blowing.
February 4th
We report: Venus's Girdle, soft in its pastel tones but simultaneously vibrant as it tends to be in the winter months. Lately, we have been hearing more birds around sunset. Once again, we live in February, and the sky seems different from all the times we have seen it before.
February 3rd
We report the echoes of solar winds, the stars through the green curtains of an aurora. This is outer space and our atmosphere interacting in an especially visible way; a series of dominoes falling in the exact right way for the atoms in our sky to produce wild colours.
February 5th
We report some waves made out of clouds today, sculpted in the same manner as ocean waves are, only slower, only more subtle. The ice clouds are still in the blue sky while some of the lower clouds are moving much faster.
February 7th
We report that we have not had many chances to see the moon, lately, but tonight, we catch it just as it begins to wane. It is still very bright through the clouds; the night is illuminated by moon rays, a pale blue light that washes over the world. We can only hear the wind.
February 6th
We report: there are the birds who leave for the winter, and those who come here for the winter, and we think that these are some of those who stay here. Courageous birds that love it so much here that they brave the cold to stay throughout the season. We are very impressed.
February 11th
We report that we stood around in the dark for a long time. It was cold, and we could not see anything at first. We kept our phone in our pocket to let our eyes get used to the dark. We heard owls, rustling in the grass, and raindrops falling from branches. The stars appeared.
February 8th
We report: last night, when we went to sleep, we told ourselves that we would feel better in the morning. As we wake up and step up to the window, we realise that we do feel better. We yawn the way one yawns when no one is around to see it. We can do this today, too.
February 9th
We report about our ongoing collection of clouds; we are wondering about the best way to acquire clouds not of our own. We wonder whether we could ask people to describe the best clouds that they have seen, and whether we would then be able to add them to our collection.
February 21st
We report sinewy cirrus today - cirrus yesterday, too, but they soon disappeared above lower clouds that blocked them from our view. Today, the clouds swam away, or dissolved into more of the blue out East, and we were not looking over there anyway. We were looking at the cirrus.
February 10th
We report: it is so windy. Wherever we look, every dead leaf on the ground, every lamppost, every tree is swept up into a fast-paced waltz, swaying this and that side. Inside the house, we can hear the rooftop creak, and outside, howls when the wind goes in between phone lines.
February 12th
We report: a long sunset, one you see coming from the other end of the afternoon. Then, we were outside, we saw the sky bright and the long clouds. The air, dry and crisp. Now, yellow and red slowly climbing up the sky, we are happy to say we were there the whole time.
February 13th
We report a very rare and complex halo display: a 20° halo, a parhelic circle with parhelia, a sun pillar leading up to an upper tangent arc and a parry arc, a 46° halo, and a circumzenithal arc. Very complex indeed, many arcs for a single sun. It is absolutely freezing outside.
February 14th
We report: the weather, as it is, is fine and good for the season. A little bit over the temperature average for this month, certainly, but as we engage in small talk with our expert, we find that we agree on the pleasantness of this weather. We wring rain out of our scarf.
February 15th
We report about the early morning. The sun is still behind the horizon, but the first minutes of light are here; enough yellow to turn the East a little bit green. We turn to look to the West and the sky over there is still a dark blue, all the darker for the sunrise.
February 16th
We report: sunsets feel earned when your windows face the East. Sunrises are earned differently, because we have to get up at the correct time to catch them. Sunsets, though, we see but the castaways of their vibrant colours, watered-down and pale, unless we get out of the house.
February 17th
We report on a morning, nearing noon. Today, we looked at the sky for a while longer than we usually do. We needed to remember a little better; we know the sky is blue, but what is that blue like, exactly? Not a picture, not a painting that begins to touch the blue of the sky.
February 18th
We report: the clouds, none any greyer than the others, but all grey in a different way. And the grey is steeped into the sky, layers bleeding into one another, so as to fade into each other, as to let through only the light that needs to go through. A light, persistent drizzle.
February 19th
We report, in the evening, sitting with our expert as they pointed at Jupiter and Venus in the sky. We looked at their face in the dark, and their voice was hushed though there was no secret in the words they spoke. They talked to us about different skies and constellations.
February 20th
We report: the sunset light piercing through the evening mist, tall but distant clouds passing slowly across the horizon. There are many birds chirping at this time of the day lately. Time is marching on towards another season, and we are always trailing a little behind.
February 22nd
We report: in the car, on a parking lot, facing the ocean. The rain is hitting the windscreen hard, in waves. It is an old car; the wind shakes it and whistles through the small cracks where the doors do not close very well. We watch raindrops run down the windows at an angle.
February 23rd
We report on this blue morning: there is a thin, shimmering layer of frost on the ground. It is still very cold before sunrise, we rub our hands together as our breath comes out of our mouth in small clouds. Our cheeks burn as we walk hurriedly in the chilly wind.
February 24th
We report: it is by doing the same things we do every day that we notice the days getting longer. Today, as we were cooking dinner, the sky remained bright for a long time; every time we looked up from the cutting board, we were surprised to notice the sun barely starting to set.
February 25th
We report in the morning sun and the wind, while the air still feels humid and smells like the night. The sun is too bright today for our sleep-addled brain. During the night, we woke up to the sound of rain several times; now the contrast of this blue sky is jarring.
February 26th
We report: still February for a couple of days more. Today: the cold is still biting our hands when we stay out for more than a few minutes. When the sun hides and comes out and hides again like today, we notice a stark difference in how the wind feels against our skin.
February 27th
We report Mars and the moon, together in the sky after sunset. They will stay close to each other until long after they pass the horizon. Quiet companions from where we stand on Earth. The clouds fold under the wind like grass.
February 28th
We report: after a day of heavy rain, we were startled to see bright pink pour out into the sky. There was a weathervane spinning wildly on the roof of a nearby house; we could see the clouds move across the sky all the better for the fiery sunset colours. The street lamps lit up.