A gorgeous supermoon has graced our first night of the New Year. And God blessed us with clear skies to be able to marvel at it, hauntingly beautiful, as it rose up like an angel over the snow covered hills, casting long, blue shadows, lighting the landscape silver. The sky, velvety dark, sparkled with the light of what few stars could be seen through the veil of moonlight. Orion leaned into the moon’s glow, and the Great Bear climbed the steep-tilted northern sky. The moon was blinding. The snow-covered trees, the snowpacked road, the rolling white hills, the mysterious shadows – they somehow softened the sub-zero chill. The half-mile walk down from Grandma’s in the moonlight was enchanting.
And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:14-18)
All that God created was good. So good. And on the night of this beautiful Wolf Moon, the nearest supermoon of 2018, marking the beginning of this fresh New Year, I catch a glimpse of what that original goodness must have been like.
After what felt like a very long fall and an unseasonably warm December, we are paying for it. And I love it. It snowed gently all day yesterday, making for a lovely, cozy white Christmas, and today the sun came out in the bluest of winter skies. But even the hours of sunlight couldn’t warm the air, and the cold almost seemed to snap and crackle like shattering icicles. The thermometer read about 1 degree Fahrenheit all day long, and plunged into negative temps as the sun disappeared. 
Our cabin’s cove heating is struggling to keep up with the chill and the indoor temperature has hovered around 60 degrees today, in spite of being turned up much warmer than that. We have a wood burning stove, but it probably hasn’t been used in a decade – Sarah and I are ready to have the chimney inspected so we can supplement (or replace) the cove heating! In the meantime, we use lots of layers, blankets, and hot tea. 
We had the brilliant idea today to do a some Jeeping and buzz over to Little Falls for a short hike. Because that is the normal thing to do when it is 1 glorious Fahrenheit degree outside. The Jeep tried communicating its unwillingness due to the cold, but Sarah coaxed it along, and we made a mad dash to Little Falls, took a look, and immediately turned around. The frozen swimming hole and frozen creek looked as frozen as we felt, but the icy chuckling of the water beneath the frozen falls was friendly sounding. I don’t think we’d ever hiked to and from Little Falls quite that quickly, our feet and fingers and faces cold and aching within a couple of minutes of hiking! But here in the Hills, we often enjoy dry cold, so even the frigid temps aren’t as bitter as if we had more humidity. It was a lovely, brisk (i.e. frigid) hike, and we even got a few good photos! 
Tonight, the temps have sunk even lower, and all the critters will be inside for the night. The cats were all in last night, but even the dogs will be inside tonight. We’ll batten down the hatches, boil some water for tea, and snuggle under blankets and watch a movie. Not a bad way to end a cold winter day.
But the Promise remained.
We took a couple of drives today to watch the fire, and this evening down towards LH Road we watched in stunned amazement as a hilltop erupted in flames, and another a few minutes later. It sure is something, seeing the reaching, grasping flames, the billowing swirls of smoke. The red glow in our sky, even from down in our hollow, is rather eerie, and knowing that evacuations are happening just a few miles away is a little unnerving. Even 15 miles is too close.
Song Dog Journal 