January 5, 2018

The sun is back at times, though it's only 17 degrees F this afternoon.  The wind isn't as strong as yesterday, but is very raw when it blows.  I liked the patterns made by the snow and leaves on the ground and rocks by the creek

The creek is flowing, cold and icy.  In places, the ice is strong enough to walk on.  I stayed away from the flowing water. 


I found some small animal tracks leading down to the water.  They were filled in with snow, so weren't distinct enough for me to try to identify, but were much smaller than squirrel tracks, so perhaps a vole or some other small rodent. 

Sunrise 7:27 am; sunset 5:00 pm.  I've discovered that, for reasons I don't yet understand well enough to explain myself, after the winter solstice the sunset time changes faster than the sunrise time.  Since January 1, the sunset has moved from 4:56 to 5:00 while the sunrise time - at least rounded to the minute - has not changed.