{"id":103765,"date":"2019-06-19T15:20:07","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T19:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=103765"},"modified":"2019-06-19T10:36:52","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T14:36:52","slug":"the-musings-of-a-simple-country-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=103765","title":{"rendered":"The Musings of a Simple Country Man"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Hobie Morris<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I Wish I Had More Time<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Hobie Morris<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I bet that you all have expressed a similar wish, especially\nat the tail end of a seemingly interminably long winter and a soggy, cool and\nmostly sunless spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your life is on hold until the sun and warmth miraculously\nappear. Waiting to be done is a long list of things to catch up on. When that\nhappens, your weather induced dormancy suddenly becomes frenetic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even \u201coff-the-gridders\u201d like my lovely wife, Lois, and me \u2013\nliving a comparatively simple life compared to yours \u2013 have many daily weather\nfrustrations since much of our work is done outside. This spring, now an\nunpleasant distant memory, set a new bar for my anxiety and impatience level. We\ntoo wish for more workable time. Each morning, I anxiously glance up into the\nsky hoping for blue sky and bright sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, for all of Central New York\u2019s gloominess, there is an\namazingly bright ray of hope. The only down side is you will have to be\nextremely patient to eventually enjoy it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you know that our day time is actually getting longer? For\nhundreds of millions of years our days have been getting longer. If this simple\ncountry man could travel back in time, let\u2019s say 1.4 billion years ago, a day\non the earth would have been 18 hours. This is why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our moon was then a lot closer to Earth and by being so,\nchanged this planet\u2019s spin on its axis. Over the eons of time, the moon has\nbeen gradually moving away from Earth. By doing so, it has been gradually\nrelaxing its grip on the Earth\u2019s spin and thus making our days longer. In other\nwords, the spinning Earth is slowing down like an ice skater holding out her\narms to slow her revolving spin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The moon is not leaving us very rapidly: only 3.82 cm each\nyear. Over a century, only two milliseconds are added to Earth\u2019s day. But, over\na million years, the day time change is significant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do we here in 2019 know all this? Ancient rocks found in\nNorthern China and a study called astrochronology give us clues. These 1.4 billion-year-old\nrocks document the history of our solar system, climate changes and the slowly\nlengthening day time on Earth. (Of course, the Earth\u2019s spin, angle of axis,\netc., are also affected by the sun and other planets as well as the moon.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, all you wonderful Central New Yorkers must be eternally\npatient. In time, we\u2019ll have more time to fill. In the meanwhile, enjoy every\nsecond of time we are blessed to have. And remember, time waits for none of us,\nand like money, we\u2019ll never have enough of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But these are only the musings of a retired and dim simple\ncountry man (and his much brighter wife) living among the birds and bees in the\nBrookfield hills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editor\u2019s note: Hobie\nMorris is a Brookfield resident and simple country man.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I Wish I Had More Time By Hobie Morris I bet that you all have expressed a similar wish, especially at the tail end of a seemingly interminably long winter and a soggy, cool and mostly sunless spring. Your life is on hold until the sun and warmth miraculously appear. Waiting to be done is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23677,23808,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-qZD","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Morris-head-new.jpg?fit=226%2C287&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}