After loving our countryside home for the past 19 years, we are now officially in the city. No we haven’t moved, the city has expanded. The annexation of our neighborhood was completed on Friday and we are no longer rural residents, but citizens of the city. Not that Rapid City is one of the world’s large cities. We don’t expect much to change. Instead of a private contractor to remove our garbage, we will have the city, which offers curbside recycling. It saves a bit of time and energy to not have to haul recycling to the area drop off location. Instead of being on a daily route for snowplowing from the county when needed, we become a lower priority for plowing from the city. The city will take over management and repairs of our water system, which was the main reason for the annexation in the first place. I guess technically we switch from the county to the city for our primary law enforcement and firefighting services, though the mutual aid agreements mean that things don’t change much in that department. I guess it does leave a bit of a hole in the budget of the volunteer fire department across the street from our home, with our taxes going to the city instead of our local fire department.

As the years pass, things will change, I’m sure. The day is coming when our neighborhood will see sewer lines to replace septic systems. And I suppose we’ll have curb and gutter and sidewalk requirements some day. We’re already pretty urban in many aspects. I guess the deer and turkeys in our yard are now officially urban animals, but they don’t seem to have changed their behavior patterns yet.

We have already seen the expansion of homes, the increase of traffic and other effects of the growing area. People want larger homes and they want to spread out into the hills. And it is hard for us to argue against such moves, because we wanted our place in the country when we moved to Rapid City. Although we didn’t opt for a large house, we have a lovely large lot with ample space between us and the neighbors.

The one urban amenity that I’m hoping is a long time coming is street lights. I love being in a place where it gets dark at night. I go out on the deck behind our house and look up at the night sky and trace the movements of the constellations. I pay attention to the moon and planets. I like living in a place where it gets dark at night.

As opposed to people who live nearer the equator, here we see big differences in the length of the day as the year passes. As we near the longest nights of the year, sunset is around 4:15 these days and it doesn’t rise until about 7:15 in the morning. That means about 15 hours of darkness each day. In June, we have sunrise at about 5:15 am and sunset nearly at 9 pm, which gives us about 8 hours of darkness. That’s not the kind of change that is seen above the arctic circle, or even in the places of the far north, but it is enough to get our attention, especially as we near the solstice.

Just as the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets come on days when there are some clouds in the sky, the most dramatic moon rises and moon sets take advantage of the clouds. It has happened in the past week that I have been going or coming at moon rise and I’ve invested a few minutes in attempting to photograph the moon. I’m always a bit disappointed with my photographs of the moon. They fail to capture what I can see with my eye. Getting just the right exposure is tricky and the moon seems to wash out and lose detail pretty easily. I suspect that the great photographers employ filters with moonlight just as is commonly done with sunlight, but I know little of filters and how to use them. So my photographs are pretty amateurish, but they do give me a reminder of the beauty that I have witnessed.

The increasing trend of urbanization means that more and more of the world’s people are living in cities. As the population of the planet grows, we are packing more and more people into cities. Two thirds of the world’s population lives within 500 kilometers, or about 300 miles of an ocean. Population growth is most intense in coastal areas and the percentage of people who live in coastal areas increases each decade. That means that the other third of us have a lot more territory per person. And we’ll be down to only about 20% of the population in 10 years or so. Here about 1300 miles from the nearest ocean, it is easier to find uncrowded conditions that is the case along the coast.

They might get the roar of the ocean and the calm of the waves upon the shore, but we get the night view relatively free of light pollution. It isn’t that one way of living is better than the other, but I confess I’ve become rather addicted to the wide open spaces and the dark of night.

Of course it isn’t really dark when the moon is a full as it is right now. Even without any yard lights, I can see details on my lawn as I look out. The moonlight gives plenty of light to identify trees and even the details of the grass. The frost is staring to come on as I write and there is a sparkle as well as the glow of moonlight. It is probably prettier than the drying grass will appear in the middle of the day.

And unlike the people of the Philippines who are being battered by a typhoon for the second year in a row, the weather around here is pretty decent.

Every place has its own beauty. We are lucky to be able to see the beauty of this place.

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