ROSE AND MICK ON MORNING WALK...

Monday, 4 a.m.... It's quiet as an empty church, with the barest hint of moving air to chill our skins...  

My big dog Mick and I are out together walking, as we do every morning in this wooded valley property where we make our home... 

Today there is no bird song;there are no coyotes howling in the distance;there is no sign of early traffic passing on the way to work...

Stars above our heads are strung like decorative garden lights between white clouds. A white-bright moon, one day from full, is shining down upon on us, tossing tree-shadows to the ground like exclamation marks.

"Not a bad looking morning for a Monday, Mick," I say aloud to my big dog, who wakes me early every morning for our pre-dawn walk... The weather doesn't matter; this is what we do; our grand tradition...

A prolonged winter of extremes has made these early walks unduly painful lately, but on this morning I don't really mind that Mick is moving leisurely beside me, beneath this gentler sky... Taking his good time; ambling, rambling, going nowhere special...

It may be damp, it may be frosty, it may be inky-dark... But something in the air is telling us that spring is in the wings... just waiting... 

Big Dog senses it, and so do I. Soon the winter will be booted off the stage!