mid-january hike: balmy, with lots of texture

I have very mixed and complicated feelings about the nearly seventy degree days we had this past weekend.  (not to mention the fact that 2012 was recently noted as the warmest year on record when looking at the contiguous U.S. annual averages)  It is January, after all.  Winter, you know....... the time of snowmen and hot cocoa and drippy mittens drying by the fire.  Of sleds and snowshoes and endless pots of soup and such.

Not that we never see that.  Her first two winters were pretty intense by local standards.  And that was just 2 and 3 years ago... but, still.  Last year we transplanted raspberry plants the week between Christmas and New Years Day, and this past weekend we were working in the garden in chacos and hiking in long sleeved t shirts.  So, what to make of it?  I worry sometimes (often, really) about the undeniably strange weather patterns emerging in recent years, wonder about what's to come, how far-reaching the effects will be.....  but I try to let myself only wonder and worry so much.  At least at any given time.  Because there's life to live and enjoy and honestly I just can't bring myself to look up at the big, blue, lovely, nearly seventy degree sky and sneer at it.  I wanted to embrace it.  I embraced it.  Little pieces of me kept going back to the wondering, but mostly it was her and I and the forest.  And really, how can I complain about that?