I needed a peaceful picture to look at. In the ups and downs of roller coaster life this is an up hill period. So I remembered this photo from when I fed friends' chickens twice a day for a week last summer. In the morning I would bring my coffee, feed the chickens and clean things out and then sit and gaze at this view for a while before packing off to get ready for work. It was warm, the air was hazy and the winds quiet.

I can somewhat track the seasons by the sunrise over the ridge line close to our house. It runs very much north to south on the map and in winter the sunrise is clearly in the southern end and mid summer it moves slightly north of the middle. But today it was very much in the south, which puzzled me. It should be farther north by now. Perhaps it was that there was a break in the clouds several miles south and the clouds to the east were too thick.

As with most places in the east it has rained alot of late. Though when I look out to the backyard there is still a good amount of snow in the way back. We are in a January thaw, gearing up for the longest shortest month of the year and the beginning of mud season.

I no longer do my night commute in total dark, which means the days are getting longer. The days they go so quickly.