Yesterday evening, the temperature dropped and the sky began to clear. Karl’s and my last walk was my moonlight, albeit still cloudy moonlight.

I woke in the night to a moonlit house.

This morning, a moon so bright that even filtered through the trees in the woods, we walked over now crunchy snow and ground without house or flash light.

I took my first cup of coffee out to the chair and sat with Karl watching and listening to morning sounds. On moonlit nights, the wildlife feed all night. There is more movement, more sound, more life in the night and very early morning. The crack of a tree limb as the deer moved below us made Karl huff and briefly bark but then seeing that they were moving on and not across his yard, he quieted. A gust of wind rose in the pines and faded away. The air smelled clean – too cold to smell of pine, no smell of snow yet – just clean.

As I sat in the quiet, several decisions were made…or rather they “occurred”. Nothing monumental, just a few things that have been rolling around in my head with no resolution for some days. It was as if I tossed all of the pieces of a puzzle into the air and they fell to the ground all in their proper places. Inside, warming up with a second cup of coffee, I sat with Bob at my feet and felt great peace.

It is a new day, with new possibilities – started in the clear light of moon shadows.

The temperature has stayed above the freezing mark since last Thursday morning.

At this point, I am rooting for it to stay warm until everything melts…we might as well start Winter over from scratch!

Karl has been mostly taking himself for his walks while I watch from the safety of a snow patch. And even he is walking gingerly with his toes splayed out for a better grip.

Bob is fairly happy as the melt has opened up more area around the house and trees for latrine digging :)!

Yesterday, although it was raining, dripping and mainly I wanted to stay by the woodstove, I also needed a walk. I warned Karl that it might only be a car ride as I was not going to risk an ice walk.

We headed to Somers. I thought the asphalt trail walk might be our best bet and if not it is on the way to the grocery so I’d gather a few items.

Montana Highway 82, the “Somers cutoff” borders the northern end of Flathead Lake. I turn south toward Somers on Somers Rd. past a favorite farm pictured in the photos from Frosted Farm and Frosted Farm and the Summer Version posts.

Just past that farm, the road curves 90 degrees to the west and continues along a bit of the lake….

…before arriving in Somers.

The green field – a beautiful contrast to the dark sky, misty clouds and gray lake.

The walk trail was dry and clear…a relief as Karl was watching excitedly and kissing my ear as we approached the small parking area. It was not raining when we arrived. We enjoyed a brisk walk because for the first time in days we could walk briskly. Pleasure in the simple things…a bit of green in Winter and finding a place to walk.

These boys…my heart.

January 2, 2011 – For me, this is the last holiday day. Tomorrow is “Get to work” for 2011. I’m happy to do that. I anticipated doing more during the 2 week holiday period, work-wise, but I “hit the wall” right before Christmas and for the most part did not much :)!

I thought a lot, though!

One of the things I’ve been rolling around is what to do about this blog.

I thought about stopping. I thought about starting over with a new name and idea. I thought about just doing photos…but I enjoy writing sometimes… I’ve been back and forth and up and down.

A recurring theme in my thinking is if I continue, how to continue and just “live my life”. This may not make sense unless you blog also but for me, living alone and choosing to be mostly alone, there is often a blog post running through my head about everything/anything I’m doing. I want to get rid of that. I want to live my life and share bits of it, share things I see via photos, share Bob and Karl…Oh…I’m doing that, but how to change how it feels to me???

The current blog format and the past history of the format steer me into a “what do I share today” mentality. New Year’s Day, it came to me that I’d like to be able to share bits and pieces of my day as well as essays or photos. And I’d like to be able to sort through all of that in a different way. And, although I don’t want to turn into a cooking blog by any means, cooking is something I enjoy very much AND it is a fun challenge to photograph food. I have been thinking about a “What’s cooking” side blog….what to do, what to do???

I had a picture in my head of how a new “From the Front Porch” might look. I doodled on a legal pad and quickly put together a layout of what I thought I wanted. I thought I’d have to code it myself but decided to look at themes…lo and behold my thoughts of layout are not that original…what I want to do is apparently called a magazine layout and there are customizable themes.

So…finally getting to the point if you’ve stuck with me this far…I bought several magazine themes and will be trying them out – LIVE!!!

I have a test domain and I was going to fiddle around there, but now we come back to “TIME” – that thing that none of us can make more of. And, it is not like I make a living with this blog – it is a hobby :)!

Sometime this week, I am going to throw caution to the wind and change the theme and the WordPress version all in one fell swoop. And things may look wonky and confused. Links may not work. One day this blog may look one way and the next, YIKES!!! As I have time, I’ll post and tinker and one day it may be what I envision.

Fair warning, a change is coming :)!