support staff

sunrise, 7:30am (I won't be fussy about seconds)

Already harder to get up today. The excitement of newness wears off pretty quickly, especially at 6:30 in the morning. One lovely part of my first two morning forays has been returning to breakfast, already prepared by my dear husband. He is not an early riser either, so I am particularly appreciative.

I am fully aware of the ridiculousness of this dawn rising challenge to untold thousands who get up every day at that hour either by choice, by their nature, or by requirement. We each have to find that something that pushes us to do and be a little more than we are, if we have fallen into a rut.

I'll introduce my cast of companions today. Kate, Clara, and Guster.

On the left is Guster, a pound hound. He barks to extremes, and may be banned from these early morning outings. But so far he's been okay. He's standing by the wreckage of an immense white pine that exploded into pieces last summer after a lightning strike.

Kate is a lab mix, always at the ready, stick at hand. She looks a little scary with those intense eyes, but she's just a little crazed with retrieval obsession disorder.

Clara is our newest addition (we seem to add dogs in proportion to the departure of children). Another lab mix, she likes to pounce on other dogs and people. It would be cute if she didn't weigh 80 pounds. We're working on that.

Dogs are one of God's greatest gifts to humankind. I'll go into that some more on another day. Suffice it to say that they contribute profoundly to my motivation to go outside. There's something about cavorting dogs that fills me with vicarious joy.