Day 57

Glass Weather:  Windy, Cool

It's been a blustery day in ABQ with interesting broken skies.  Almost a wee trace of precipitation, but no luck there in the end.  Just as well, I washed the car yesterday after the dust and ash of the Jemez last weekend. 

Speaking of the Great Jemez Mountains Botanical Expedition of 2014, I spent some time putzing with my nephew's data.  I found a great LANL reference on insolation.  It gives us Btu's/sq ft/day at the latitude and elevation of Los Alamos for any month and almost any aspect angle and slope. 

As it turns out, there's about a 20% difference in amount of sunshine at this time of year between the north-facing slope and the south-facing one.  Here's a typical plot on the south side of the canyon (#throughglass).  Pretty sad. 

Compare that with this from the north side (from my Droid camera). 

Despite the presence of a Schlepp bear, it's obvious that the north side of the canyon (south-facing) is doing much better.  The question my nephew must now answer is, why? 

In closing, here's yet another Wisteria shot.  This plant has definitely got its mojo on.  The bees were going crazy.