Long Shadows as Winter Begins, Manomet, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA

It's midday and this is how high the sun gets above the horizon. Every year I am amazed (memory problems?) that at 42 degrees north latitude this is about as high as it gets. No wonder the days are so short, the nights so long, and the cold so deep.



There is an eerie kind of beauty to it - to see the long shadows - to walk in the brisk cold - to feel the low sun on my face. I sometimes whine that I wish I lived in a warmer climate during the winters but, in 22+ years in New England, I haven't taken any action to make that happen other than short trips.



As the saying goes, "home is where the heart is," and, for good or ill, New England is my home and likely to remain so. I've spent more years here than any other place on the planet.

Not many birds come to the feeder now - cardinals, nuthatches, flickers, woodpeckers - most other regular visitors have migrated south for the winter. The resident otter still roams the pond feeding at will, occasionally popping up through holes in the ice and looking around. The deer and turkeys wander by looking for scarce food.



The blue book on the table is a National Geographic World Atlas. I've spent many hours over the years traveling the world in my mind looking at these pages. I sometimes wonder though, if travel is as important as many say it is.  Perhaps, like much of our society today, it's an idea foisted upon us by the airplane makers, and airline companies, and hotels, and tour bundlers, and the rest of the travel related industry to just sell us another product or service.  Maybe, methinks, I am just turning into a curmudgeonly old man.

Truly, everything I really need is usually right here at home or nearby. For most of the known history of humanity, life was lived locally. Considering the difficulty and unpleasantness of travel these days - traffic congestion on the highways, or traffic to get to the airport, security headaches, often long waiting lines, cramped oversold flights, questionable food, bodily system upsets, and so on. Kinda makes staying home a better alternative.

And anyway, another glorious New England spring is fewer than 80 days away!