The frosty morning softened as the sun made its way around each corner of tree branch and tree trunk. Soaking up this new warmth from the entrance of a wood duck nest box was a squirrel who peeked its head out.
On the south side of Chicago, I walked across snow-covered sand on an icy lakeshore. The ice that had formed where water met beach lowly creaked as water moved underneath it. The winter day was cold, but, thankfully, there was a lack of wind whose harshness would have only been magnified by traveling across Lake Michigan.