Last night the wind howled. Every tree in the backyard shook. The dogs wouldn’t go out into the wind. The donkey fell and the cow lost its head.

When I first woke up, the sky was cloudy. Now I see stretches of blue and the glint of sunlight. It is warm at 50˚. Tonight will be chilly again, in the high 30’s. The high wind warning is still in effect.

By January 18th we will have gained an hour of daylight since the solstice, and every 28 days we’ll gain another hour. We need to celebrate, to wear bright colors to welcome the sun. I’m thinking we need a party.

When I was a kid, the stretch between Christmas and February vacation seemed endless. The mornings were dark and cold. The streetlights came on early. January lasted a lifetime. Every day we bundled in layers and walked to school. We had to wait in the schoolyard, in the cold, until the bell, until the nun rang a handbell from just outside the door. We dutifully lined up two by two and walked into the building. School was inviting. I remember it felt warm after being outside for so long.

The school desks varied from room to room. I had one which opened at the top. It was easy to keep the inside neat and orderly. My lunchbox went under the desk or beside the chair. The worst desk was the one with the opening under the desk top. To find a book, you had to bend your head down and look through all the books for the right one. The nun would tell us to get our books, like our reading books, and every head bent down at the same time to look. It was almost synchronized.

I have one of those desks in my kitchen. The top holds the microwave and my collection of African cookbooks. In the book slot and on the chair are all the dish towels.

When I was on the deck earlier, I noticed my cup measure in the yard. It had disappeared along with an almost empty bag of dry dog food. The empty bag was in the back forty. While I was retrieving the cup measure, I found one of my metal windups. A wheel is missing. It is from a recent theft as I cleaned the yard Saturday. While I was in the yard, I picked up pieces of a cardboard box, also from a recent theft. That dog is tricky.