Sunrise/Moonset

Since moving to this house, our dog Mia has been pretty chill. Though the woods around us are teeming with animals, none of them seem to venture anywhere near the house. Why would they, with all that space unspoiled by humans and our noise? And now that we no longer live on a busy road with runners and cyclists to monitor constantly, Mia is free to sleep 16 hours a day under the pine trees by the front porch.

It's kind of like a doggie retirement home.

That's why it was surprising to hear her start barking continuously at around 4:30 this morning from her bed on the enclosed porch. She did it long enough that A. got up to go out there. He didn't see or hear anything, and after seeing him, Mia seemed to consider her warning sufficient and went back to sleep.

One short hour later, Charlie was in our room to inform me his bed was wet. After dealing with that and getting him back into bed, I let Mia out of the enclosed porch and out the front door. She still seemed somewhat agitated, so I decided to go out with her. Just in case she saw something for real and decided to take off.

I was still tired and displeased about being awakened twice before I needed to be up, but then I walked onto the front porch and saw that the sun was just starting to rise, and the moon was still shining as brightly as if it were the middle of the night.

Photos of this sort of thing are always much less impressive than in real life, so you'll just have to trust me when I tell you it was quite spectacular.

So thanks to Mia the Brave and Charlie the Wet for making sure I was up and out to see that. It was a good start to the day, after all.

(And I didn't see anything alarming outside, either. You know I was thinking of that damned bear the whole time.)