midwinter

December 21st. Do you call it midwinter (as you should, looking at it from an astronomical perspective), even though it is deemed the beginning of winter for us northerners (climate-wise, this makes sense as typically our coldest day is still a month away)? 

Winter Solstice -- so perfectly understood now and celebrated for that pivotal moment when we stop shortening our sunlight hours. We dont need to light the bonfires to chase away evil spirits. We are satisfied with a warm mug of cocoa (milky coffee in my case) and some cookies and a few moments of humble gratitude for all that we have here, on our beautiful planet as a result of The Tilt and The Orbit. This drowsy time of winter is not long at all. If you have a warm home and food to heat up on the stove, you surely can appreciate the beauty of the gentle light outside, no matter how short its duration. Low lying, subtle, with or without sunshine -- wintry and lovely.

I am up early. Before sunrise. We have the expected cloud cover, but there's a crack, just at the horizon, not too far from the "ascending" sun. Here are our eastern skies, at 7:26 a.m. -- the sun has just made its first appearance.

How awesome that it should be thus! That we should have this wintry pause and then a turnaround as we add one second to our daylight quotient today!

(a little later, a momentary appearance through a haze...)

Breakfast. I bake blueberry muffins, because Snowdrop is still home sick and she has suffered too many cancellations and disappointments these past few weeks, so I prepare a treat tray for her and of course, take out a couple of the muffins for the two of us here at the farmhouse.

I have an appointment to have Blue Moon inspected (18 month checkup, just like a toddler!) and so I drive over to the dealer. I've never sat in their waiting room before. It's healthier, after all, to take a walk while they service the car. No walk today! We are in single digit territory (so, around -15C) and I'm cold just thinking how the worst is yet to come. So I hunker down and drink their free coffee and eat their Kind Minis (peanut butter in dark chocolate) and I think about how spoiled we are with our warm waiting rooms and warm cars and warm coffees and how tough this winter is for those living right now in war-torn regions.

Afterwards I go to my daughter's with muffins and cherries and, keeping my mask on, I visit with the kids. Just for a short hour. It's so good to see them peppy and active, despite the weight of the virus activity that tore through the house in the past two weeks. (Snowdrop hasn't had her 24 hours without fever yet and so she is home yet again. The boys are already out for winter vacation.)

(Sparrow, with his beloved Numberblocks)

(Snowdrop always chooses the muffin with the most blueberries)

(Sandpiper from his best perch)

(tell me he does not look like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone!)

(almost well now!)

(he is sooo playful!)

At home, groceries have been delivered and put away. I have food for the holidays! The wish now is that we keep our electricity during the blizzard that is slated to hit us tomorrow. For the farmhouse, this is crucial. No power means no water pump and of course no heat. It means that our freezer downstairs, which is full for the winter, will not keep our stored foods fresh. It means we can't heat the chicken coop and with plunging temperatures, that is not a good thing. We put old quilts over the coop and we filled a pot or two with water. That's all we can do for now. 

An hour before sunset, we challenge ourselves to go out skiing. With the storm approaching and with plummeting temps and horrific windchills, we wont be able to do much outside in the days to come. Now, at 12F (-11C), with good mittens and a warm cap, we are almost tropically toasty. This is it then, let's go!

It is exhilarating to be out in the cold, especially when you know that a warm home awaits you.

Driving back, I pull over, just ten minutes short of sunset. Of course, you'd hardly know that the sun is still with us. The clouds are thick. The winter storm is just beginning to let go of ice pellets. Outside, the deer dig through to the leftover corn in the fields. The world around us is beautifully still.

I drop Ed off to lock up the hens and run one last errand before the storm. It's dark by the time I pull into the driveway. The development lights shine to the north. Our nightly visitors are here, looking for seedpods and spent flowers. Do you see her there, by the great willow?

A peaceful evening here, in south-central Wisconsin. Wishing it were so in all corners of this beautiful planet.

with love...