Happy Solstice!

The separation of day and night at Winter Solstice 2015.

From Earthsky.

I'm posting this at 8:48 P.M. PST (4:48 UT, December 22), the very moment of the Winter Solstice. The sun, from our viewpoint on this spinning globe, has reached as far south as it will go, and is now beginning to move back north. We in the Northern Hemisphere have made it through the darkest time of the year. Now, this minute, the journey back to light and warmth, a long, beautiful journey, has begun.

Have a great trip.

Post-Solstice Walk With One-Eye the Cat

Went out about 3:15 Sunday afternoon, right after the solstice. One-Eye went with me. We call him that because a couple of years ago he came in with his face clawed and his left eye out of its socket. The vet tucked it back in, sewed his eyelid shut, and filled him full of antibiotics. He survived, and seems to have sight in that eye.

He came because this is his territory. From his point of view, I'm the one going on a walk with him.

The river's still high. Sometime between Christmas and New Year's I hope to use up some added minutes of daylight down at Rocky Ford Creek.

But for now it was good to spend the end of the shortest day of the year and the beginning of the longest night of the year out under the sky along the river.