04039 vs.30629. No contest!

I write often about how nice it is in Northeast Georgia. Not for nothing, but it's mostly the weather. People are nice, the living is a bit less expensive...but the weather sure does make the difference.

I spent 17 years in Rhode Island, a nice state but still New England, which means snow and ice and sleet and dark winters. But I was a kid and I didn't know anything then. I went to college in Bangor-Orono Maine, 300 miles further into tundra-land. Talk about dark! Talk about cold! Talk about snow! Amazingly, I stayed in Maine for the next 30 years. I don't know why. Seemed like the thing to do at the time.

If you count the frost time when you can't plant anything in the ground, Maine winter lasts 9 months. The average temp is below freezing five months a year. In November, less than half the possible daylight hours are cloudy. (48%)

Contrast that with Comer GA and, well, I am happy to report that there are NO months when the average temp is below freezing. None, Nada, Zip. And the highest average temp occurs in July, 89 degrees. Not bad!!! (Thirty-year data ending in 2000).

Now, forget data, let's have a visual compare and contrast:

I snapped this blooming dandelion yesterday. Notice the greenery poking through the blow-down, too.

Contrast that with a snap from the Gray Maine webcam today. My office used to be a few feet from here and my apartment two miles from here. Dark and nasty weather, huh?

Below: winter bird, sitting on a branch near my second floor deck. Blue skies, happy bird.

Here we have a snap of a winter bird in Maine during the same February week. (Photo from robotbunny on Mainetoday.com website)



Below we have a buried car. My husband at the time and I returned home from a week in FL and this is what greeted us, my Saturn station wagon was completely buried. Not happy.



A Saturn wagon...not buried. Which would you prefer, if you had a choice? Thank God, I did have a choice and I've never been happier to dwell where the livin' is easy and the climate is gentle.