Thank you for reading my blog.  I have now written about thirty posts and appreciate your patience with my typos and technical glitches.

I am always glad to receive input and have heard from a few of you in the last couple of weeks.  Charlotte found out the name of the tree that shelters the A-Bay cats.  Robin shared an article about an unexpected and not-so-pleasant visitor to the High Line.  Kelli sent a picture of the egrets that are in her neighborhood in the Dominican Republic.

I’ll be doing followup posts on each in January and look forward to hearing from you in the new year!

Photo Credit: DD. Photography via Compfight cc

Skateboards and comic books appeared to have taken over Hastings when I stopped in during the holiday season. I’ve spent the last two years trying to weed out my bloated library giving box loads of books away, so it had been months since I last stopped in my local mall bookstore.

It took some hunting, but eventually I found what I was looking for–the nature and animal sections. Side-by-side, they had been moved since my last visit and, surprisingly, expanded. I perused the mix of new and used books for a half an hour trying to narrow my selection to a reasonable number.

By P. Nixon

The four I finally decided on should keep me going through the next few weeks of short, cold days. Now I just have to find a spot for them on one of my crowded bookshelves.

Photo Credit: Pétur Gauti via Compfight cc

No white Christmas for New Mexico this year.  According to a story I heard on KUNM  that’s not uncommon–it happens about once every sixteen years for Albuquerque.  Santa Fe with its proximity to the mountains is more likely to have snow, but not this year.

On Christmas afternoon it was sunny and forty degrees, perfect for a walk.  Dave and I met our friend David and his golden retriever at a trail head west of Santa Fe,   There were remnants of an earlier snow for Seamus to roll in, but the trail was dry.

It reminded me of the many Christmases I spent as a kid in Liberal, Kansas.  We always hoped for snow, but it rarely happened.  Somewhere, I have a photo taken out on our driveway on one of those Christmas days.  My sister, eight- or nine-years-old , dressed in plaid wool pants and a heavy sweater is just about to find her balance on a new pair of stilts, not a snowflake in sight.

I checked the weather in Liberal when we got home from our walk–clear and forty-seven degrees.  I like to think there were a few kids out on Fairview Street playing with new toys.

First night of winter:  it’s cold and dark, clouds obscuring the waning moon, but the snow flurries have stopped.  Somewhere in the southern sky is the hunter, Orion, with Sirius, the Dog Star, at his heels. 

It won’t be noticeable, but tomorrow there will be a  few more seconds of daylight as winter begins to give way to spring.

Photo Credit: Eli Nixon

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep.