The morning sun filters through the trees on this way warmer than normal first day of the New Year. The talking heads on the tube say the temperature will hit 60 for the third day in the row here in the mountains of Southwestern Virginia. Maybe those who yap about global warming are onto something.

Even with all the fireworks and celebrations, the world ended 2004 on a pretty sorry note: the daily carnage continues in Iraq in a mess we made and probably won’t find a way out of any time soon; the death toll from the tsunami in the Pacific increases hourly to astronomical heights and it becomes more and more clear that we, as a nation, are led by a collection of morons.

Yet I can’t let such realities of the outside world ruin the beauty of a Winter morning here in the mountains (even when that winter morning seems more like Spring). The ability to escape the harshness of existence outside the boundries of Floyd County led us to leave the Washington area after nearly 24 years and settle fulltime in the mountains. Today, I will take pictures of the beauty of nature, enjoy the relaxed pace of country life and worry about the more down-to-home needs of leaves that need to be cleaned out of gutters and boxes from the recent move that need to be carted away to the dumpster.

I get my daily dose of real-world harshness each morning from editing Capitol Hill Blue, the news web site I started in 1994 and can’t seem to walk away from but when that is done I face the realities of a tree in the front yard that may have to come down, a new table still nestled in the SUV that needs to be brought into the house and a beautiful day that will allow us to walk the lines of our property.

It is 2005 and we head into the New Year with a new life in a new (and old) place with new friends, new challenges and new energy.

Happy New Year.