West, East, Last Light, First Light

To the West, cattle and the end of a year.
To the West, cattle and the end of a year.
first light of 2016
To the East, frost and a new start.

I’ve been idly tinkering with the idea of taking more photographs lately–an impulse that hits me every few months. I had seen someone else post a photo of the final sunset of 2015 in their area, so I thought I’d do the same. The sun had already gone down, and so it ended up being the last light of the year for me.

Of course, then I got the clever idea to get the first light of 2016 as well. Which is why I hauled my warm, vulnerable carcass out of bed at 6:45–having consulted a calendar of such things–to catch the first pastel glow behind the frosted fields and hills.

Of course, it wasn’t exactly light yet at that hour. But I needed the extra time to don the approximately forty-two layers of clothing needed to go outside. It was 26 degrees F, and I am still Southern California born and bred. That is not a temperature I endure without assistance.

From indoors and under-blankets:

Happy 2016!

Published by Joyce Sully

Joyce Sully believes in magic and dragons and ghosts, but is not convinced her next-door neighbors are real. So she writes stories. Really, what else could she do?