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I moved a few days worth of firewood in from the pile, stacked it along the wood stove, ahead of the coming night's snowfall.  Under the crystalline blue skies I was sweating in the cold, cold wind.  Oak leaves cartwheeled across the pocked snow-crust.

46th birthday and time for reflection - (though a long Sunday with the family bouncing around the wind-bound house doesn't lend itself to reflection).  Porter and Nico decided to craft me a carrot cake.

If life comes in thirds, the first 25 years are all about growth and adventure.  The second 25 bring the creep of entwining responsibilities and compromise, and the third 25 should be about the liberations of wisdom and peace.  I'm closing out that middle third.  And I'm going to take up beekeeping and plant a vegetable garden.

Monica will go to Japan instead.  And then together, when we can, we'll climb into the Sierra Nevadas where the earth and heaven overlap.

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The snow is down to 9 1/2 inches between the front door and herb garden.  But in the yard, where the sun shines the brightest, patches of grass show through.  Jake and Porter were pestering the Norway spruce with shuriken, and in their search for a ricochet they found a dead hawk under the rhododendron.   It was a red-tailed, the carcass pristine and undamaged - a magnificent animal.  Maybe in the confusion of wind it struck a branch and broke its neck - or maybe it ate a poisoned mouse - or maybe it was West Nile virus.  They boys carried it off into the woods.

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Dormancy . . . one of my favorite winter words.  I haven't been dormant entirely, not like the chipmunks or mourning cloaks, but clearly I haven't been writing in the blog.  In the yard, the snow that fell before Christmas is still on the ground.  12 inches deep between the front door and herb garden.  But it is steadily disappearing, shrinking away from anything that gathers the sun's heat.

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