The photo looks much like the photo I took prior to the eclipse last month, but this time the light comes from the sun seen on an overcast day through an elm, a hackberry and an oak. The photo is in color this time, if that's not apparent, and it is only slightly underexposed. The sky has been dark and glowering all day.

The dusting of snow we had yesterday -- enough snow for the school to cancel my Friday evening class -- has melted to mush and mud, and we're back to the sweater/sweatshirt weather we have enjoyed for the past two weeks. The snow wasn't on the ground long enough for us to go sledding, and the sky doesn't match the warmth of the temperature, but it has been a good day, maybe because spring seems nearly within reach now that we've passed the mid-point of winter.

And yet a sky like today's says it's still the season of stews and gumbos, and not the season of grilled meats and eggplant, and homegrown tomatoes and salsa. Today's afternoon aroma arose from a gumbo of ham, hot sausage, and chicken; I did, however, lock the door against the culinary police who might arrest me for calling this dish gumbo while omitting okra from the pot. Although I love okra and even grow some in summer, others here cannot abide its texture, so I leave it out, another half step.

While I cooked, the younger boys watched The Rock in the kitchen with me for the third (fourth?) time in the last two days (they had a school holiday Friday -- they are halfway through the grading period, I suppose). It's not a movie conducive to recalling the upcoming springtime succession of forysythia, creeping phlox, daffodil, quince, flaming something-or-other, redbud, lilac, tulip, spirea, and chives, but we liked the emotional balance between Cage and Connery. And the rice-a-roni car chase through was cool too.

Halves. If you make it half way, you make it all the way. Zeno got it wrong and knew it. If you concede the halfway mark, you might as well concede the endpoint.

In a month, we'll plant onions, the bright green tops of last fall's planting of garlic will poke through the mulch, and life won't be half bad.

Links for the record:
xdrive.com for free file storage (100 MB, I think)
addme.com for listing a site with the search engines. Not sure about that.