January afternoon light

January seems like a good time to start a new blog. A new year for a new activity. People sometimes seem to pity me for living where I do in winter. Or they wonder if I'm crazy since I seem to have chosen it. Actually I love January here. It's fun to get out all the Christmas decorations and have the house so festive for awhile. But I think I like to put it all away even better. The house seems uncluttered and simple again. Suddenly there's more time for things I've been planning to do and more time to do nothing too. Late afternoon is my favorite time of day. Emily Dickinson said "there's a certain slant of light /winter afternoons/that oppresses....".I know what she means. It's an empty, lonely feeling, but somehow I've made friends with it. It helps if you have a dog, of course. I keep a diary or journal of sorts with notes on weather, nature happenings and a little bit about how I spend my days. Back when my golden retriever, Molly, was alive we used to often be together outside on late afternoons. In my journal I would often write just "late afternoon light on ash trees." When we first moved here my forester son, Marty, told me that there was a very nice stand of ash trees at the back of our property. They stand to the north of our house and something about the way the light hits them late in the afternoon some days makes their long slim trunks just glow golden. For awhile I haven't been looking at those ash trees much. But I've been going out with a new dog named Bear and the two of us are noticing those trees and the sky and the late afternoon light again. It's been very cold this January. The snow crunches when you walk or ski on it. We seem to get a little new every few days. It's very clean and white. The dark green pines are heavily weighted down with it. On late afternoons of sunny days when Bear and I are out the sky is blue on top and then a layer of lavender with pink on the bottom. Sometimes there's a little gold there too. Is that better than late afternoons on days when the sky is a deep gray and the snow is falling? Bear and I have a hard time deciding.