The planting could start earlier here as well. Problem is day length. You can go ahead and plant, but it will all just sit there and look at you like "what?". And the heat is earlier, and worse, so next year will call for some changes. Then there was the grasshopper invasion and they ate all the root crops. May as well wait until September before trying again. Corn got fried, so I'm starting over with that now. At least the grapes and the melons are doing well.
I spent a week in NM once, on spring break. Awesome night skies. You do any stargazing (with a scope)?
Michio Kaku and a bunch of other scientists tried to get the government to harden infrastructure etc. Tried.. After hearing him talk about it I did some things to be a little better prepared but I really should do a lot more.
Not with a scope. But given the clarity of the air, it's almost unnecessary. (The clarity is also responsible for the spectacular sunsets.)
I just today opened my observatory to cool off the mirror, expecting a good night. Alas, clouds have moved in. Do you have a scope ric?
I had an 8" Dob when I lived in Yukon. Only have a pair of Celestron 11x80 Giant binos (no longer made) on a tripod at the moment. Never had a dome. Plenty of room for one here, but I'm northeast of Calgary, and even at 30 km there is still too much light pollution to enjoy the view towards the center of the Milky Way. So I haven't replaced my Dob. If I had a good night sky I'd get that Meade 16" Dob and put it in a dome. (I'm fond of manually starhopping, using an atlas.) What's your setup?
Yeah, star hopping is satisfying. That's what I do also. I have a 10 inch dob that I hacked into a homemade equatorial fork mount permanently polar aligned/mounted. Around that I built I built a shed that opens up. Calling it an observatory is a bit of a stretch. I think I had as much fun creating the mount as doing the astronomy. I used an old stepper motor from a tracking platform I had made from a kit plus some foundation support columns and a trailer wheel hub. Real backyard mechanic stuff, but with it I can do basic astrophotography. The astro photography is pretty cool. What looks like a fuzzy blob in the eyepiece reveals itself to be a galaxy with bars and arms and dust lanes on the laptop screen. As the thirty second exposures are aligned and stacked on each other an image comes up. I stare at the screen and wonder who in that galaxy way out there might be making images of our milky way. Galaxy imaging is all I want to do now but it's not an easy endeavor with my crude set up. It also allows me to enjoy astronomy even with my light polluted skies. This is not my image but I made one very similar to this one. M 109 Compared to the serious guys with the megabuck equipment it's crap, but I like it.
This absolutely sickens me. So you are HERE in Canada, very close to where I live in fact. And you even have a farm, which suggests you will survive the economic collapse of USA. Not only will you survive, but you will have all the protection Canada has to offer. TODAY I WILL TELL GOD, TO MAKE SURE THE SCUM WHO HAVE ESCAPED HIS PLANNED WRATH, get it in some other way. cancer murder (robbery gone bad example) Bad luck accidents. Tree can fall on your car and crush etc.