Hibernal Journal: Week 8

Surviving what you can't control teaches you to better appreciate the things you can.

Sunday, 02/09/2025:

Sunrise was at 6:51 a.m., under snowy skies, the air was still, and the temperature was 24° with a "feels-like" temperature of 15°. The sunset will occur at 5:09.

As the weather app had promised, Mother Nature dropped a few inches of fresh snow overnight, with the forecast promising more over the course of the upcoming week. Alice was beside herself at 4:30 a.m. When she hit the top step of the front porch and practically dragged me into the yard... Eating as much of the fresh snow as she could put in her mouth while she was tending to her biological affairs. There is just no way to avoid finding your inner child while watching your 100 lb puppy, jumping and playing and rolling around in it in the very same way you did when you were a kid. We took several trips out into the yard as the day progressed, spending the better part of an hour under Bruce as Alice dug, rolled, flailed, and did her best 100 lb Tigger moves (pogo-sticking like a crazy person) and generally burned off so much pent up energy that only a 2-hour nap would do. The skies were perfectly clear in time for sunset, which the two of us watched until it was almost completely dark, quite sure it was one of the best winter days we have had since she started doing her work a month and a half ago.

Observation of the day:

Happiness can often be just as readily found by observing it in another as when finding it within yourself.

Monday, 02/10/2025:

Sunrise was at 6:51 a.m., under cloudy skies, the air was still, and the temperature was 24°. The sunset will occur at 5:10.

After a weekend apart, the girls picked up right where they left off on Friday. They are always so happy to see each other in the morning, and once you get used to the sounds they make and the chaotic flurry of the first hour of twin sisters catching each other up on everything that has transpired since the last time they were together, we settled right back into our daily routine. It really is like Doggie Daycare; me and Alice get up every morning, go outside, and sit together over coffee Before Sunrise so we can get back inside quickly enough for her to have breakfast before I go back outside and wait for Emma to be dropped off at "school." there are trips outside (recess), nap time /quiet times, mostly healthy snacks throughout the day, and the final walk outside one last time to wait for puppy pick up. Our routines and our daily lives together combine for a pretty amazing life... Once you acclimate to colder temperatures and endless chaotic puppy canine enthusiasm, you discover that winter ain't so bad after all.

Observation of the day:

While true that a Hermit life is better - lived in the comfort of routine and repetition, the salt and pepper sprinkled over it laced with canine calamity makes every bit of it taste that much better.

Tuesday, 02/11/2025:

Sunrise was at 6:48 a.m., under clear skies, the air was still, and the temperature was 6°. The sunset will occur at 5:12.

Like a cat torturing a catnip-laced stuffed mouse, Winter served up an icy cold greeting for me and Alice on the heels of several relatively warm days. When we got outside this morning, the air was thankfully still, so we didn't have to contend with wind-chill temperatures, but Alice did her business, grabbed the leash with her teeth, and pulled me back toward the house and up the steps to the door as soon as she was finished. If it is too cold for a dog built for this sort of weather, it seems to me that no human in his right mind should argue with her. I couldn't help but laugh. Once we got back in the house, she ran to the top step and looked down at me as if to say, "Could you hurry up with the whole thing of taking your hat and coat off? I'm starving, and I know you're dying for your first sip of coffee, so let's pick up the pace here!"I did as I was told, feeding her and the cats first, of course, and we waited for Emma. It was clearly an indoor day, and the three of us entertained ourselves, took our nap on time, and otherwise just enjoyed each other's company.

Observation of the day:

There is no shame in choosing to stay indoors on days you could be outside; "slipper" days need love, too.

Wednesday, 02/12/2025:

Sunrise was at 6:47 a.m., under partly cloudy skies, the air was still, and the temperature was 14°. The sunset will occur at 5:13.

Miss Alice must be going through a growth spurt; for the first time in weeks, I was woken up by the alarm rather than the canine face bath, and when I threw off the covers and sat up in bed, I looked over at her, and she was still sound asleep. I shuffled into the kitchen, hit "GO" on the coffee pot, and came back into the bedroom to see her lying on the floor just inside the door. All I could think of was "the lazy teenager" speech I used to get when I was one, and I couldn't help myself when I started making fun of her about clearly having trouble finding the energy to start her day. When we finally hit the front porch, greeted with 14° weather, I figured out that she probably already knew it was cold and didn't see any reason why she needed to be in a hurry. We have learned, along with Emma, that temperatures below 10 are less worth getting excited about than temperatures over 20, so we knew before Sunrise that it was probably going to be another indoor day, and there was no real reason to feel hurried about anything. She wasn't wrong; once Emma got here, and the energy was burned off after about an hour, we settled into a quiet day filled with naps, occasional treats, and a few brief visits to the yard. We had our Sunset routine, but otherwise, we spent the day in the best low-key manner we could muster.

Observation of the day :

You can't be considered lazy if having chosen to spend the entire day doing nothing was entirely by design.

Thursday, 02/13/2025:

Sunrise was at 6:45 a.m., under wintry mix skies, the air was still, and the temperature was 30°. The sunset will occur at 5:14.

Back to the tongue, ear, and face bath morning alarm clock, I was woken up a little after 5:00 a.m. To find that the promise of snow, sleet, and freezing rain that the weather app had promised last night had been lived up to once we hit the front porch. Admittedly, it was a little disappointing that there wasn't a thicker new layer of winter paint, but the girls were still quite happy with even more snow being on the ground. As the snow turned over to rain during the course of the afternoon, things became a little more sloppy and slushy, but it did not bother them in the least. Temperatures got back down south of freezing by bedtime, barely, but me and Alice agreed it had been a perfect day.

Observation of the day:

There are always messes in life that we make for ourselves or are thrust upon us, but the best of these are the ones that are cleaned up by somebody else- Mother Nature's Winter, in this case, the longer she takes to get it done, the more time we have to enjoy watching her do it.

Friday, 02/14/2025:

Sunrise was at 6:44 a.m., under clear skies and strong winds, and the temperature was 25° with a "feels-like" temperature of 10°. The sunset will occur at 5:15.

It was gorgeous stepping out into the yard this morning because the skies were perfectly clear, and the full moon was still pretty high above the horizon. There were plenty of stars in the sky because sunrise was still nearly 2 hours away, but the wind was absolutely brutal. Me and Alice have learned how to find joy and happiness in Winter's embrace all the way down to the slight breezes and 10° temperatures, but when she wraps us up with 25° and sets her fan to 35 MPH, she's a little harder to love. The forecast warned us that we were in for a blustery, cold, and challenging day with winds gusting as high as 45 MPH. Needless to say, me and the girls spent the day inside once Emma got here. We took our four normal trips outdoors, heading back inside as quickly as we could, resigning ourselves to the fact that we were outmatched and out-gunned and that it would be wise to steer clear of nature's ferocity.

Observation of the day:

As the saying goes, "Sometimes you are the windshield, and sometimes you're the bug," and those who live longest are the ones who figure out how best to pick their battles.

Saturday, 02/15/2025:

Sunrise was at 6:43 a.m., under clear skies, the air was still, and the temperature was 12°. The sunset will occur at 5:17.

I'm pretty sure Alice's watch is running fast because somehow she concluded that my 4:15 was apparently her 5:30 a.m., but I quickly disabused her of that notion, rolled over, and woke up at 6:00 a.m. for the day. It turned out to have been a great idea to "sleep in"; when we hit the front porch, the lightening, and pale blue skies were perfectly clear, and the fading full moon was still very high in the Western sky, retreating from the rising Sun in the East. With the air being perfectly still, we were able to enjoy coffee on the porch- 12° is not for the faint-hearted, but sufficient layers make it pleasurable all the same- and we discussed plans for the weekend ahead. My weather app warned me that a storm of snow, sleet, and freezing rain would consume our entire weekend; I forewarned her that our "calm before the storm" time was at hand and that she could plan on the rest of the weekend being effectively an indoor weekend. As promised, the weather started going south right around sunset, but as we have learned about her these past weeks, there is a certain sort of serenity in the harshness of winter weather. She may not be easy to love, but once you learn to appreciate her purpose, she's impossible not to.

Observation of the day:

As it is with harsh Winter weather, so, too, is it in life that surviving what you can't control teaches you to better appreciate the things you can.

Weekly PostScript:

The week ended as it began; we went to bed as the snow picked up, and we will wake up with new layers of Winter paint on the ground tomorrow. It is worth noting that getting one or two minutes more of daylight on either end of sunrise or sunset goes easily unnoticed because you don't notice it a day at a time nearly as much as you do a week at a time. Now that 2/3 of Winter has elapsed, it is quite noticeable how much more Daylight there is now than there was right before Christmas. On the one hand, this reality makes for increasing enthusiasm about spring being almost here. On the other hand, now that she is starting to drop subtle hints that she will be leaving soon, I'm already starting to feel like I might actually miss her beauty every bit as much as I'll miss just how fierce and unforgiving she can sometimes be.