It's 2 a.m. and I'm up watching TV and every so often venturing into the pitch black of my back yard to look at the lunar eclipse. The news media around here has promised the moon will turn blood red. It's orange, so I'm waiting to see if it gets darker before it starts to lighten again.

There is nowhere darker than my back yard on a dark night. The wind came up at midnight, and it's blowing small chunks of yesterday's snow onto the metal roof, making clicking sounds. I'm afraid of the dark, so every trip out there to look at the moon requires courage. It's the year of courage, though, so I can handle it.

Saturday I was talking to the state highway department employee who is in charge of repairing our highway, including the side of my driveway. He was talking about how he loved it in December when it was cold out, and he would get called out for a problem in the middle of the night, and it'd be pitch black, and he just loved the feeling of solitude driving to the work site, and then the big machinery was working with big mercury lamps turning night into day, like a polar expedition camp. He loved it. And every time I've gone outside tonight, I've thought about what he said.

This is a lonely time of night, and the cat has gone back to bed. We saw the fox earlier, but even he has left. He's still spooked by the cat, so only comes around at night, and races off if he sees me watching him.

I need to get up in 5 hours to put the trash up at the gate for pickup.