Spring is here

Sun Dagger: Native American (Anasazi) Solar Observatory

This year, the vernal equinox happens today at 18:29 Universal Time. It occurs at the same instant everywhere on earth. The days and nights are of exactly the same duration at the equinoxes, one of which marks the onset of Spring, the other the start of the Fall season. As the old feeder has noted in previous posts, the ability to predict and mark these season changes has been of great importance to human beings since man's bifurcated brain began to wonder what would happen mañana.

Pictured above is a view from inside an ancient solar observatory built by the Anasazi people in what is now Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. These folks used the arrangement of rocks relative to some petroglyphs to allow a sliver of light to point out the solstice and the equinox. Other examples of such ancient observatories are Stonehenge in England, and the so-called medicine wheels here in America. Whatever, Spring has sprung.

In other, less spring-like news, the feedlot is currently being inundated with a heavy wet snow. Here is what the forecasters at WOWT in Omaha (this link made the Drudge Report) predict for today:
On the plus side, we really need the moisture. And as folks in this part of the world are wont to say when hit with a big snow after the vernal equinox: "At least it won't last very long."
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Want to try balancing an egg on it's end today? Chances are, it will be just as easy to do it today as on any other day.