Falling Star Shoots from Orion

A falling star shoots from Orion as the hunter rises in the east.  The days are short.  The temperatures at night have begun to fall below zero. Trees creak in the cold breeze under a waxing moon.  There is a dusting of snow in the air and on the ground: another winter in the North.

Our thoughts have gone to shoveling, firewood, four wheel drive, long underwear, warm insulated boots, anoraks & choppers.  Across the globe, Northerners are passing long nights with food, cards, tea, wool sweaters and music.

Waking at light, we go to work and come home to dark.  I've almost forgotten some of the daily images of the property because I never see them during the daytime hours.  The reality is that we're middle latitude and only a few weeks remain before the winter solstice.  After that, the days only get longer.

I've spotted a number of fox recently.  It seems like their numbers are up.  An extremely rare wolverine was spotted outside of Lutsen.  The largest member of the weasel family, wolverines are tenacious carnivores.  Typically weighing less than 50 lbs they have been documented killing prey many times their size.  With large ranges and low population densities it is very uncommon to spot one of these animals.    

We are living on the land comfortably. In the past few weeks I've been busy doing wood chores, putting plastic on the windows, installing our bed frame, waging a war on mice to keep them out of our truck at night and planning our projects for the upcoming year...