Hibernation sounds like a good thing. I’m grateful for down comforters and cozy quilts, crocks of soup and stews and the warmth of home. Simple things like watching birds and light and shadow, reading and coffee seem to fill the days while chores sit and the list of things I planned to do on snowy days is long forgotten in what seems like a never ending winter – and it is only January <sigh>.

The amaryllis has been such a joy and I will miss its cheerful greeting as the blooms begin to fade.

A few years ago we left our winter snow and went south. Far south.  Where it is cold in summer. I decided to share a few photos from that January when I didn’t mind wearing my winter coat.

And yes, the birds in the background are penguins! 

     These are Magellanic Penguins. They nest in burrows. January is summertime in Punta Arenas, Chile but the season is short; the chicks grow fast and the parents take them down to play in the water’s edge.

The most wonderful thing was that we walked on a simple path marked out with sticks and twine right along the edge of their mounds and they didn’t seem to pay the slightest bit of attention to us as they went about. They, however, had our full attention!

Such amazing creatures hidden away in a remote part of the world waiting for eons for people to even know of their existence, delighting their Creator.