Nothing moves without leaving behind a track, some evidence it was here. I heard an interesting article on NPR that as we move, we leave behind a cloud of microbes as unique to us as our fingerprints. Yesterday, I left a track bicycling to the post office and the feed store, the one on the right, and one when I came home on the left. With the snow gone today, those tracks are gone, but there could be microbes that dropped from the cloud of microbes that drift around me.

Anna left behind this beautiful egg today. I’m pretty sure it’s hers. It was the only egg on the nest she was last sitting in. It’s a gorgeous tract.

More tracts are these winter sage, rosemary, thyme, and oregano. Chopped up, I used them in our lunch. They are now in my belly, leaving traces behind as they flow through me. Bits of them my body will absorb. Eventually bits will ooze through my pores and become invisible microbes floating in the cloud around me. A week from now, my dog may sniff the tracts I leave behind and wonder why it smells like oregano. Things never go away, they just flow on and on and on.

You’ll find the most dazzling blooms of the year in your garden in midwinter. White starbursts of ice petals which dazzle in the morning sunlight. You never see shimmering blossoms like this in the summer. These aren’t flowers you can take indoors to enjoy. They’ll melt in your fingers before you make it to your door. You have to enjoy them outdoors in the biting cold.

The first sunrise of the New Year. How lucky to have a cloudless sky. As a boy, going down to the beach to watch the New Year sun rise above the ocean blue was a highlight of the year. The sun rises over the ocean and sets in the mountains, that was the way it was growing up. Now the sun rises over the mountains and sinks into the sea.

On a frosty start to the New Year, even the plastic frog is happy to see the sun. The way it sits, it sees the sunrise every morning. For years it’s watched the sun come up every day with a big smile. Every day is a good day. Every day is a good day. The trees are enthralled too. They’re lucky. They stand so tall, they bask in the glorious light a long time before the great gold one shines on me. We owe our lives to the great gold one. Without it, we would just be cold, lifeless star dust, drifting through the endless universe.

A cherry tree which knows no seasons blooms a few blossoms all year long. It never bursts into bloom like the other trees. A few blossoms here, a few blossoms there, year round it blooms.

Morning dew drops on a puff of moss. One of the wonders of the natural world. Every few steps along the old, crumbling fence, a wonder on each post. It’s why we don’t rip the fence out and build a new one. It takes decades for a new fence to be this wondrous.

Visitors may wonder why we keep the old fence. But they wouldn’t have to look at a sterile new fence every day. And what would happen to the puffs of ancient moss on the old fence?

Yesterday morning brought a fresh surprise, the first snow of the season. Just a light brushing of snow here and there, but enough to bring happiness.

At the same time, a buttercup poked its yellow smile through the fallen leaves. Snow and buttercups on the same morning. A very special day.