After an unusually mild December and January, and half of February, winter finally sagged onto Skinny Island from the north early today.  It was preceded by much-needed rain Friday night, an hours long soaker that replenished our rain barrels, and then increasingly cooler north winds Saturday, a teasing day of sun and clouds that saw the high temperature for the day occur at about 10 a.m.  A record low of 30 was recorded at the airport, several miles south and inland from here, but moderated by the ocean, which as of last night was holding at 62, we bottomed out at 35.  That’s the commonly accepted Farenheit temperature, of course, but we have developed and adopted a new scale, which we will explain shortly.

A fast-moving band of dark gray cloud was revealed out over the ocean at first light, obscuring the actual sunrise, the northwest wind relentless, but there was an empty, invitingly wide beach between tides, and donning a seldom worn, fleece-lined, hooded parka, we headed north, into the wind, for our morning constitutional.  Through breaks in the clouds the sun cast heavenly rays to the water and briefly illuminated clumps of foam washed to the sand that vanished in the wind in seconds.  A scattering of shore birds hunkered down, and a single osprey made slow progress 80 feet up in the wind.  The wild ocean broke in 8-foot waves a hundred yards out, the blown spray of their cascading tops silver against the Payne’s Gray bank of clouds.  Head down to keep the hood from blowing off, and hands freezing despite being buried deep in the jacket pockets, we pushed on to our turnaround point.  There, the sun emerged above the clouds, and with the wind now at our back and the sun in our face, the return trip was almost comfortable and accomplished in almost half the time.  Exhilerating, with eggs and grits the payoff.

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And here’s the new seasonal temperature assessment scale, henceforth known as The Skinny Scale, to which we now adhere.  Having determined, through years of trial and error, that our optimal functioning and comfort occurs at and about 80 degrees Farenheit, any temperature falling below that standard will be expressed relative to it.  For example: it was 35F here this morning, now expressed as 45 Below.  As this post is being composed, it is about 52 outside, or 28 Below.  We keep the temperature inside the Little Hacienda at 8 to 10 Below.  And so it goes.  Tomorrow morning we expect again to experience temperatures in the 40 to 45 Below range.  This is, as stated, a seasonal scale, meaning we only apply it in the cooler months.  It would be senseless to apply it in summer, because there is no upper end of temperature corresponding to a diminishment in function or comfort.  Heat-induced somnolence is not a loss of function; it is equilibrium.