Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius. ~Pietro Aretino

The cat is my cat, Oreo. She was born in Dubai.
The tree and roses are in my garden. The flowers are still blooming although it's almost January! It's a warm winter this year, which is comfortable but causes a problem for local farmers as drought settles in--this might also mean a dry spring. The other pictures were taken in my neighborhood and at the Baptism Site at the Jordan River, the place where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist thousands of years ago. At that time the Jordan was roaring and rushing and 10 times the width it is now. Sadly, its waters are now diverted for cultivation purposes by Jordan, Israel, and Syria. The rest flows into the Dead Sea. The people you see are pilgrims on the opposite bank, in Israel.