Big Sky Country, At Night

A new puppy means becoming reacquainted with the night sky.
It's a crappy time of the year to bring home an 8-week-old pup -- cold, wet, dark by suppertime -- but standing outside last night, both of us wearing our fleece coats, and looking up into a black sky spackled with diamonds, I remembered why it's so amazing to live in the country: No light pollution.
I love how my eyes can barely contain that vast space above me. So much space. So many stars. The night sky, full of stars and planets and that wonderful if strangely named Milky Way, is the kind of beauty, the kind of mystery, the kind of infinite possibility, that we should all reconnect with every so often. And when you're house training a new puppy, it's good to have the memory of that beautiful night sky on every other night that it is windy, and raining or snowing.