I had a day-dreamabout moving to Vermont this morning. I saw a job posting for a job in Saint Johnsbury that fits my qualifaction.  I imagined that I had an old farmhouse, and lots of kids. Saint Johnsbury is smaller and has a lower standard of living than Bismark ND. I haven't actually been to Bismark. Maybe it's more illustrative to say there's less than 30,000 people in the whole county. That's one one-hundredth the size of the Twin Cities. I'm not sure I could live in such a small area. I certainly couldn't in the Midwest, but maybe in New England.

Later in the day I raked my backyard. It's not a large yard. But it wasn't fun. I was a little turned off the farmhouse idea. My current house isn't even 100 years old, and it has plenty of problems. I don't like fixing houses, but I sure do like Vermont. The weather probably sucks just as bad. Actually, it could be even worse. For all the griping I do, I think there are more sunny days in the Twin Cities than there are in, well, at least the part of New England I'm from. Hmm... better google this to be sure.

Later that evening...

Wow, one sure can learn a lot of trivial things... eg. It rains a lot less in Minnesota than it does in New England. It's a little colder in Minneapolis than Saint Johnsbury, but it's sunnier, and it rains less.

It rains almost 45 inches a year in western Massachusetts. That's almost 20 inches more per year than here. Turns out it isn't very much sunnier.

http://www.worldclimate.com/

And

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/online/ccd/avgsun.html

8:31:11 PM