Winter Light.

What's out there is a kind of low-lying cold. You want a shirt over your shirt if you're going to be chopping wood. Second day of the work week, second fire. The timer just went off on the coffee, so we've been at it for however long. Right now minus four hours. Or three. I'm waiting on the building to heat, pecking at the weather report quietly so as not to disturb the morning naps: the Toad, because he is wee; AMR, because she now carries the flag of the gray death for the rest of us. The squirrels have made it all the way down the eave on the front of the building, and are now at work on projects to the right of the front door. When they fight along the back side, little bits of insulation fall out. As soon as I can hold a drill over my own head and can finish the soffit back there, it'll be time to call in some experts. Some folks with a van and a live trap. Catchy name. Vermin Vamoose. Wild N' Crazy. Some such thing. If only this were like geese, and I could hire a border collie to come in and harrass these things into the next drainage pond. Tall woman in a ranger hat, a quilted vest, a whistle, a bandannaed dog named after somebody famous. Go get 'em, Meryl Streep.

We're still close enough to solstice to where the low sun off to our south is almost under these clouds, which gives a kind of churched light to the whole proceedings out there. It is light and not light all at once.