back home

There's a beautiful moon outside...
I know, but my camera is packed and I haven't the energy to look for it.

It has been a long trip back and the last part -- waiting for the last flight to Madison -- seemed the longest of them all. A delay of three hours isn't tragic, but it wears on you, especially when the crew keep saying - just a few more minutes - and it's not that at all.

But it surely seems like I snuck in through a window of decent flying weather. Snow the day before, snow today -- wow, there's winter in Wisconsin!

We stopped at the grocery store on the way home from the airport. Salad - I want a salad! Oh, home is looking so good!

In the middle of the night, Ed again tells me about the moon. But I don't want to move: Isis has snuggled at my elbow all night long. I don't want to disturb him.

Still, it really is bright, throwing winter beams over the snow-dusted earth. I catch the shadows of the night out the bathroom window.






And in the morning, there is a sunrise, and I don't need to leave the farmhouse for that either.



out the bedroom window





out the bathroom window



And there is breakfast...





And there are chores to be done, groceries to be restocked, all that.

And thenthe  snow starts falling.






Want to go skiing?
The temps are in the single digits... Well sure, why not.

It's crazy to go skiing at 4 p.m. when you could have gone at 3 or 2 (because you're retired!). But we do just that, driving over in the old Geo that, against all odds, Ed repaired in time for the winter season.

It's spremely quiet out here, in the woods by the lake.





No  ski tracks to follow, just a white path.

It takes us an hour to do the loop and sure enough, it's nearly dark when we finish.





You don't like this as much as Paris, he says.
We talk like that. It's the way we express a feeling of pleasure.


At that farmhouse, Isis has settled in for the long haul. That cat is a poster boy for contentedness. He's not the only one.