If your birthday is February 29th, I want to wish you a very happy belated Birthday! You are one in about 5 million folks who are often referred to as Leapers! You can celebrate your actual birthdate only once every four years. Sound crazy? It’s not — it means you were born on a leap day. Leap days are important because they help our calendar match up with the same seasons every year. Human-made calendars generally have 365 days; the solar, or tropical, year that influences seasons is about 365.2422 days long.Â
A solar year is how long it takes the earth to revolve around the sun. Even though .2422 of a day doesn’t sound like much, ignoring that fraction means eventually our seasons won’t fall in the same months every year. For instance, your school year might eventually start in the spring instead of late summer. And if the calendar didn’t match up with the seasons, farmers would have a more difficult time growing crops, which could affect food supplies.That’s why, in the 16th century, the Gregorian calendar—the calendar most commonly used today—started adding leap days to match the calendar with the seasons. Because four .2422 days equals about one day, February 29 is now added to most years that are divisible by four, like 2020.Â
The Niners took to the road after play on Wednesday to mosey down to the Pizza Shack to enjoy the Wednesday buffet.  I am told they had a fabulous time and the food was delicious. They did all this without me! I can’t imagine what I was thinking when I scheduled some tile repair work in the kitchen. I have been on a quest to fix things that need repair around my house. I know better than to schedule anything on a Wednesday. Crazy me.
The  Friends of the Charles B. Stewart West Branch Library located at 202 Bessie Price Owen Drive in Montgomery is still hosting their Spring Silent Auction Fundraiser which began on February 28 and will end at 5:00 PM on March 18th. There will be gift baskets, jewelry, golf, dining, handmade quilts, framed artwork, carved bowls and more to bid on. They have also collecting used books of all kinds. They especially need current books and children’s books. The books are for the annual book sale that is scheduled for May 3-4.
Karla Seidule may be reached with Walden news at karlaseidule@icloud.com
