January - Day 7

Sunrise 9:13 am / Sunset 3:34 pm Walking 1:13 - 1:48 pm

My parents built our home on forty acres that was part of almost a square mile of mostly wild land, covered with pine, hardwoods and fallow fields.

Those woods were my childhood play ground. In my teenage years I was out walking in them almost everyday with my dog. In the beginning, it could get boring -- there is a limit to where one can walk when the border is a square mile.

I made myself try to be on the look out for the slightest change in nature, from new growth to the way grey bark looked when temperatures dipped well below freezing. Those walks gave me years of training. As a result, I almost never tire of walking familiar routes.

Sometimes in the bleak mid-winter I am forced to re-focus, to remind myself that the wonder is there, if I open my eyes and look. Today this is the wonder.