Sunny this morning, if frosty, calm wind, it all made for a nice ride in. I've been wearing progressively heavier gloves and jerseys the last three days, and I finally got it dialed in as I left home. Of course, that meant it was too warm by the time I got to work. So it goes...
I saw two trees with leaves still on them -- some of the last holdouts of deciduous trees around here. The second was the expected black oak, but the first one looked like a gum tree!
That got me thinking. It's a good frost in December, does that make it winter? The grass quit growing last month, and we had some cold, frosty mornings, but that was in November so it's late fall, right? There's still pecans falling, when they stop is a fallible sign of winter since it was after Christmas a few years ago. All my leaves are down and raked up. If I waited for snow to declare winter it'd be every 3-4 Februarys until that happened.
Do you go by astronomical dates for the start of winter (December 21 this year)? One of the "indicators" listed above? Or is there something else that makes you say, "It's winter today"?