I've been puttering around putting off going to bed. I realized I needed to take the dogs outside one last time before lying down. So I put my padded Carhartt pants on over my flannel pyjama bottoms, stuck my boots on my feet, put on a sweater, my jacket and my hat and gloves and hooked up the dogs to their leads.
We headed for a nearby pee spot in the snow, then went down the driveway to the road.
The Northern Lights, which have been almost nonexistent all year, were gearing up. Spears of aqua light were poking up from horizon to past the center of the sky vault. At first vague and unsure, they gained momentum and did some very impressive swirling, fencing and blending.
The I told the dogs to look. They looked. We stood there on the hard-pack, all three of us perfectly still for the fifteen minutes it took for my face to get numb. They didn't even pick up their feet. They just watched.
It's -20°F tonight.
