When the wind comes down from the North.

Hola. This is what we are wearing in my neighborhood this week. Seven layers of clothes from top to bottom. It's freezing.


Not to matter, we still walk and it's not so bad. It's even colder to walk in the forest, to the Winter Gate and back. Two miles there and two miles back. If it's too early in the morning, there's too much ice for some of us in there. Ruby prefers the forest in any month but January. But me and Otterpop like it when it's cold and empty, only sounds from the creek.


It's easier to travel by beach on a morning full of ice though. The sun hits here the first, even if the air is full of snow clouds the sunbeams still reach us after coming across the sea. I don't think it will snow this time, even with that cold wind coming down from the North. It's about a mile or so down the beach to the trestle, and about a mile back. We have to hurry when we walk back, into the North wind.


There's a little more light now, and if I hurry, we can walk in the dusk at the whale skeletons. It's really only a big field, full of scrub brush and rabbits and some bobcats. I can run the whole loop now, this is the way to get rid of the Christmas cookies, even if it's just a mile each loop. It's colder when I run it, the wind creeps in my ears. Seven layers, only one loop, and the cold still gets in.