The nights (and days, thankfully) have been clear up here for the past week. Last night, I took my contacts out, then went outside to check on something, and I could make out the Milky Way overhead. It was a generally whitish, blurred stripe among many whitish, blurred dots.

Not coincidentally, it has also been dropping below freezing almost every night (To Scott: Yes, IT’S COLD). We wake up to frosty, crunchy grass, and slippery deck stairs. In fact, when I take out our current invalid, Opal (recovering from spay surgery), I have to go down the frozen deck steps on my butt, so I don’t get yanked down 6 steps by a sled dog on a leash. Face first.

If you’ve never had the opportunity to walk a sled dog, let me give you an idea of what it’s like. Imagine tying yourself to a car with a 6′ to 15′ piece of rope. Put the car in gear, and hold onto the rope. Now, try to stop the car by pulling on the rope. That’s a small sled dog. To simulate walking a bigger dog, have someone hit the accelerator while you hold the rope. Fun!

Anyway, it’s getting cold here. The proof is on my car:

The sun rises a little after 8 now, and sets almost exactly 12 hours later. That’s an hour less daylight than we had 3 weeks ago. This is where the sun sits at around 10am right now:

Tomorrow, I think I’ll setup my hd camera and capture the sunrise. Hopefully it won’t be too cloudy.