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...

winter sunshine

Here we are, nearing winter solstice (tomorrow), daydreaming about longer hours of sunshine. And yet...

This day is actually as short as tomorrow's. December 20th -- Madison sunrise: 7:25, sunset: 4:25. December 21st -- Madison sunrise: 7:26, sunset: 4:26. In other words, by tomorrow evening, we will be gaining light.

Too, take it from us chicken people: darkness is relative. Though today's sunset comes at the earliest point in all the year (see times above), it actually feels fabulously bright out there because of the radiant sunshine we have on this day. Normally Ed locks up the coop between 4:15 and 4:30. Today he can push it a little further because dusk comes later. Tomorrow -- I may remind him to start locking things up by 4 and on Thursday -- the day of the anticipated big storm -- even earlier.

Did I say "big storm?" Yes, you will have heard, I'm sure, that we are in for a blizzard: heavy snow, fierce winds and wind chills easily hitting -25F (or -32C). Slated to pound us Thursday through Friday. I mean, the high on Friday will be -2F (-19C). Power outages expected. Travel coming to a grinding halt. I feel so terribly bad for people who are so eager to get in the car or catch a flight to be with family! Happy winter indeed!

But hey, today is gorgeous!

Morning walk -- peaceful, pretty...

Breakfast -- warm and cosy...

More holiday preparations -- aiming for grocery delivery tomorrow so that I can beat the storm. This means foods for the week, including for three holiday family dinners, have to be put on the list now.

And by early afternoon, the sun is out, full blast, and we are ready to go skiing. 

(on the way to the park: guys, you need to fly out before it gets crazy here!)

I haven't words to describe the prettiness of the landscape now, particularly along the woodland path. 

The snow is getting crusty from the cold, but it's still good for skiing. And breathtakingly beautiful to look at as we silently glide along the narrow trail.

We go to the portion of the park that is rarely visited. The trails aren't groomed. We're okay with that. The peace and quiet here is perfect. You are among your friends in nature. You come out a better person than when you first went in.

In the evening, I continue with all that I do before the holidays: wrap, clean, plan, and read. I watch the sun go down and I think -- what a beautiful place this is! No, not bleak at all. Utterly beautiful.

Christmas week

I do understand that for many people, Christmas Eve begins the period of celebration. If you follow that tradition, then the twelve days that follow Christmas ostensibly trigger a long lasting birthday party of sorts, no? One religion-focused website instructs celebrants to keep on partying until the Epiphany (January 6th). It's the Feast of Three Kings, emphasis on feast. So, feast and party away, from Christmas Day until then. It's a bit of a simplified view of the holiday, but that's the way I have always understood it to be in Poland. There, the tree goes up on Christmas Eve and then I suppose you rejoice for twelve days after.

Since I have always picked aspects of the holiday that fit within my own view on what should be celebrated, I sort of flipped everything: Christmas activity starts now, and the momentum grows until the holiday itself, and then it fizzles. Done. The music, the feasting, the family gatherings, and yes, the presents -- all finished oh, maybe one or two days after Christmas. I'm ready then to put away ornaments and switch back to my jazzy folksy classical music. The Christmas tree is usually tired, and so am I! 

Thus for me, it's the week before Christmas that's special. It's contemplative. It's anticipatory. It's like the days before Thanksgiving: all full of hope, no recipe has failed yet, no weather event has foiled your best laid plans to travel to be with family. It's all beautiful and intense and potently sentimental. 

I suppose for my family, the joyful gatherings will always begin now around the time of Juniper's birth. And immediately after that, we fully engage in holiday madness. And so today I wake up to that feeling of incredulity: we have passed the midpoint of December. Solstice is on Wednesday, Eve on Saturday, Day on Sunday. A loaded week of preparations. 

I also wake up to a very real cold spell. An Arctic blast rarely makes its way down here for the holidays. But this year -- wow, it's really cold, all the way through Christmas Day. 

With the chilly air, though, comes a crispy frosted beauty. When I go out to feed the animals, I take my time, detouring to corners of the farmette land that I rarely visit in the wintertime. I see that another tree has fallen. But mostly I see the magic of a winter with snow.

The hens are all clustered in the barn, refusing to step out into the big freeze, except for the one Bresse girl who insists on laying her egg in the garage. She runs over as soon as the coop door opens and stays in a box on top of the table saw until the egg pops out...

... then back she goes to rejoin the rest.

The cats? They take a long while before finally stepping outside.

Ed is sleeping late today, though I wake him when friends drop in with Christmas greetings. We linger with them around the kitchen table and postpone our breakfast until after. In the meantime, I light a candle -- my new juniper one. It triggers memories of a December celebration alright!

Yes, it is a late breakfast, but that shouldn't have thrown me off. We often eat quite late. But somehow, between that and the fact that I have no scheduled Snowdrop pick up (she is still home sick), I am completely lost to the world, planning out menus and making lists, and this is all fine, except that at 12:30 I am startled to see that it is... 12:30! I have a coffee date with my daughter set for 12:15, on the other side of town! [She wants to hear every detail of the birthday bash, since she had to miss it due to the illness that swept through her home.] I have never in my whole life lost track of time so completely. I carry a clock in my head all the time, to the point that I never need alarms and wake-ups, nor reminding pings and calls -- I know when to get up, when to pick up kids at school, or take them to lessons and appointments. I'm on automatic clock pilot!

Not today. Today I completely messed up. And mind you, my daughter is the one who is on a work schedule and has the time constraints that I no longer have. Sigh...

Well, we do have our coffee and my girls are always very forgiving of parental eccentricities and peccadillos. But after, I hop over to Clasens Bakery (my last visit there this season!) and pick up some chocolate gingerbread to atone for my unfortunate behavior today. 

And I take it over to the young family's home, where (from behind a mask) I also get to visit with Snowdrop -- sick since Friday, though hopefully on her last day of whatever bug circulated in their house.

After I come home, Ed and I toss around the idea of going skiing. We are really unmotivated! It's cold! It's late! We've got stuff to do! Tomorrow! For sure!

Tonight, I reheat the soup I made yesterday and we tear off pieces of bread from Clasens and thank our stars that we have such a wonderfully warm house, and me -- that I have such wonderfully warm daughters in my life.

With so much love...

birthday bash

This day marks my final attendance at a birthday party for a one year old! Of course, you never really know. Unexpected babies pop out all over the place. Best guess though -- this is the last time I'll watch with utter contentment as a babe plunges freely into a piece of a first birthday cake.

It's almost always better here, on Ocean, to hand over the stage to the main players on a day like this one, so I will hold back the words and rely on photos to tell the story of how it all unfolded.

1. Breakfast: I come up just us oatmeal is being served. 

I cut up the fruits for us all and join them at the table.

2. The Cake: this was a long process! My daughter had already made the cranberry jam and the sugar coated berries. Last night, actually late into the night, she baked the cake. This morning she is making the frosting and putting the whole thing together. Primrose helps.

The dad helps as well.

Done!

3. Getting everything and everyone ready: we make a paper chain to decorate the room. And now the kids get dressed. As it's a special occasion, I share my lip gloss with Primrose. Can you tell? No? Okay, I'll use more next time!

Juniper, the birthday girl, wakes from her nap and also gets ready. No lip gloss for her. Just a crown!

(Happiness is... owlie.)

4. Grandparents arrive (and, too, an uncle an aunt).

5. Lunch: the savory part.

6. The gifts: first, a card from big sister.

A musical llama from me. Juniper is so musical that she will sway rhythmically to her own banging on the xylophone.

Wait, do I see more presents? Yeah!

You know she is getting tired when she clings to a purple box and looks with glazed eyes at all of us.

7. Lunch: the sweet part. The cake: finally, to be enjoyed. The song, the candle -- just one!

No no! Can't touch!

Mesmerized.

Help blowing it out.

The younger family.

Eating it! Loving it! Being amused by it all!

And there you have it! A beautiful celebration of Juniper, the youngest little one in my pack of grandchildren. Pulled off grandly by her dedicated and joyous parents, and her friend for life -- her big sister Primrose.

I drive home soon after. I want to get back before dusk. Blasting Christmas music, losing myself in thoughts of this month of festivities and foods and love, so much love -- I get home in no time.

Hello, snow-covered trees.

Hello farmhouse. Hi Ed...

Let me tell you about my weekend in Chicago...

With so much love...