Hello, Everyone!!!!

No, this handsome fellow hasn't taken up residence at our little homestead. He resides at Buckwheat Bridge Angora farm, a fabulously cool place we visited in the wind, rain and fog yesterday.  It was the kind of day that belied any hints of Spring, the kind that has my older son swearing he's going to move to North Carolina and us looking at the dwindling pile of pellets and wondering if there's any chance we can nurse them along for a few more weeks. The pellets we have left are the extra half ton we bought after blowing though the last three tons. I like cold weather and snow, but even the most avid Winter lovers are just....done. 

But there's hope!

Signs of Spring abound, though! The catalpa tree is budding, our garden plans have been drawn and we have dozens of seed packets. We visited a local maple sugaring operation (he even let us each tap a tree!). Fresh greens have hit the indoor  Farm Market,

the chickens are savoring the outdoors and stepping up egg production. Two weeks ago I retired the Winter dishes and pulled out my Spring coffee mug. 

Two of Linda's three hives survived the brutal Winter, and Saturday she picked up 30,000 bees for three new hives. And of course, with Spring comes babies! At the moment we're fostering two litters of kittens, 

both sets with their moms, which makes life so much easier for Linda.

My new job has started, and it's great. The people have been so welcoming, and I'm excited about all the projects underway. Each day is full and diverse, and I've had to hit the ground running, but it truly is all good. Funny thing is, as busy as it feels, it'll be Summer before I know it and that's when we'll really be busy! It's so god to be back in a library, and I don't miss the job I left behind at all. There is an adjustment period as I adapt to a very different schedule. The day starts and ends later, and the commute tacks on even more time. But you know, it's amazing...I go to bed and fall right to sleep instead of tossing and turning; in fact many nights I don't even read before falling asleep. My days off don't whiz by; they're wonderful and I will always wish they could last forever, but I don't look at the clock with shock and dread anymore. 

So life is good. 

Is Spring springing where you are yet (or Fall, for those in the Southern Hemisphere)?

To New Beginnings!

Dear friends in the blogging ether-hi!  I've missed you! It's been a crazy few weeks since my last post. Although we haven't been as Winter-ravaged as some of you, it's been more of a Winter here than I've seen in many years.

That photo was taken back in December, but we have had several more, including a storm this past week that resulted in a perfectly timed snow day. And it's been cold! I honestly don't recall having as many below zero nights and single digit days as we've had this season. We thank the powers that be daily for the wonders of the pellet stove, as do the furred ones in the household.

Got through my busiest time of work, finally emerging from the 13 hour workdays weary and frustrated. And then...it happened! A call I really didn't expect, the culmination of 3 1/2 months of waiting and interviews, process and thought, wishful thinking and mental seesawing. My office phone rang, and on the other end was the voice of my future boss, offering me the hoped-for position! After 7 1/2 years, I'm returning to library work! Some of the work will be familiar and some is branching out in new and exciting directions...working with youth planning, and eventually some community outreach. I've done outreach work before, back in my festival days, but this is will be a different sort. 

I owe alot of love and gratitude to Linda who listened to my angst about what I might be giving up if I was offered and accepted the job; let's face it, libraries have different economic realities than where I've been the last few years, and I've enjoyed a freakish amount of time off at the job I'm leaving behind, between the extended holidays, standard vacation time, Summer Fridays off, and the comp time that came from those 13 hour work days. But Linda--and my family & friends--supported me and reminded me that all those good things came at an exorbitant emotional price that had taken its toll, and that I've missed library work all these years And when that call came, I was stunned and honored, and barely hesitated.

I'm truly excited; the dedication of the army of volunteers is amazing, and I'm mightily impressed by the drive, vision and determination of the library staff and board to serve its small rural community as fully and completely as possible. It may be I've never confessed to you my passion for libraries, the way they put the world at the fingertips of anyone walking through the doors, regardless of income, 'class', social stature, ethnicity, religious or political beliefs. Libraries are both magical and as critical to a functioning society as schools. This will most assuredly be an adventure that lets me feel good about what I do at the end of every day. The new job starts in early March, and I'm working hard to leave my current job ready for someone else to step in.

So that's my big news; I so look forward to checking in on all my favorite bloggers...stay warm; Spring's coming, I promise!

Once More, With Feeling!

Wishing you peace, love, contentment, abundance 

& laughter in the new year!

And in the wise and inspirational words of Neil Gaiman:

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

...I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

Merry Christmas!!!

Welcome Christmas, come this way

Welcome Christmas, Christmas day

Christmas day is in our grasp
So long as we have hands to clasp

Welcome Christmas, bring your cheer

Christmas time will always be
Just as long as we have we
Welcome Christmas, bring your light.....

(Y'all know where this comes from, right?)

May your days be merry and bright no matter what you do or don't celebrate this time of year as the light begins to grow and a new year peeks around the corner. May there be peace on Earth and sugarplums dancing in your head and heart. May the gifts that can't be wrapped shine even brighter than those in packages, boxes and bows. 

Miss you all, be back very soon!!!

More Gratitude

October is a feast....of color, abundance, bounty, beauty. Every year I try to gorge myself on it like a child who knows that birthday cake only comes once a year and so eats until sick. Of course, unlike that child, I never get sick of or from October; I want more and more....and its inevitable passing breaks my heart.

Ah, but then, cooling balm to the riotous color, peace to the frenzy of activity, November arrives. Its winds blow away the warm Summer evenings' haze, and there's a delicate, naked beauty in the blue-black night and bare trees adorned only by the waxing Moon and Venus.

November can be harsh and intense; even as I began to write this yesterday,  the stiff breeze had the wind chimes calling out in alarm and the sun shades banging the window frame. The fire was up, we wore double layers, and I was tucked into red alpaca socks all day. It was a gray day, but the kind of gray that is unmistakably November, the perfect backdrop for the golden browns and and lingering yellows, a day that requires the simmering of soup & burning of cedar incense, and so I embraced November with nary a glance back at October. A farm market visit was followed by the making of an amazing roasted squash and apple soup (with bacon!), not a creamy and refined soup; no, this soup is hearty, chunky, beautiful and comforting.

I will say the recipe has a few vague moments, and the end result was a tad too sweet. I recommend leaving the bacon in large pieces and removing once the simmering part is done. The recipe uses "white wine or water"; water seemed a bad plan, and I didn't have white wine in the house, so I used cider. Next time I'll use a dry white wine, and tarter apples, and perhaps a wee bit of ginger. I also suggest not mincing the garlic, but instead throwing in a generous amount of halved cloves (I think I halved about 10 good sized cloves) with the apples and squash and onions. I mashed the veggies just with two big spoons, purposely leaving some chunks. Oh, and I added a bay leaf to the simmer pot. It's a soup worth experimenting with, and will go well with grilled cheese sandwiches for a comforting dinner tonight.

We took a ride through the encroaching dusk, dogs in the back of the car watching the world pass by; our destination was the piece of property we're in the process of buying. We have a contract but it's an odd and convoluted story that may take quite a few months to iron out. It's several acres about 40 minutes from here, elevated just enough to change horticultural zones from 5b to 5a, and just a wee bit cooler, 5 or so degrees, from our own house. The wind blows nearly all the time there, sliding off the slopes of the northern Catskills, a living being ever present.  We've yet to manage photos that truly capture the beauty, 

so it will have to be enough to say that the mountains are right there, so close they look like you could walk to them, so close the land feels nestled into their lap. I'm learning alot about patience and trust (as my sister & I say about patience & trust--blech!, although she's so much better at them than I) as we wait to see if it will all untangle. 

This morning I stood out on the porch, coffee in hand, surveying the yard and the vast amount of buttoning up left to do, telling Linda it'll be easier to just move than try to get it all done. And then I realized that the back yard was filled with birds: gold & house finches, bluebirds, chickadees, juncoes, at least three kinds of woodpeckers, and more....gorging on coneflower and black-eyed susan seedheads, in the weeds and trees and quince bush, in the raised beds and tomato pots. I love watching the birds; next weekend's chore list includes setting up the feeder stations in the front yard, but to see so much activity in the back was such a gift, and an affirmation of our plan to begin turning part of the back yard from lawn to meadow. I can watch birds for hours, but alas, too many tasks are lined up for the day, from creating storage for a large quantity of Winter squash to making room in the freezer for several more quarts of soup, roasting veggies for dinner later this week, and cleaning two cupboards to make room for the plethora of spices we purchased while on Cape Cod.  But the window shades will stay up so I can watch the birds as I work. If you're not seeing so many birds today, perhaps a visit to this webcam will make you smile and give you a taste of November's peace. Because amidst the chores and the impending holidays is an oasis of calm. November (in this hemisphere, anyway) invites us to prepare for Winter but also to begin hibernating, snuggling in, to sit by a fire and take time to watch the birds; to simmer soups and stews; to knit and spin, sew, read, write; to dream and plan; to savor this moment. November has moments of such quiet, almost the hushed whisper of a Winter snowfall but not quite...November is our chance to catch our breath, recoup, and prepare for the months ahead. And for that, I'm deeply grateful.

Have a great day!

Giving Thanks

Do you ever catch a recurring theme out of the corner of your eye? Maybe you're bringing in groceries and catch a glimpse of shirttail as it disappears behind a tree. Perhaps it flits past your window just as you look up from your desk. Or you're outside watching the sky at sunset, hear a rustle in that pile of leaves, and it's gone. And yet, each time you spy juuust enough to recognize and name it. In this particular case, its name is Gratitude. Suddenly a call to this particular grace is appearing like pumpkins in October, glowing without a word, waiting peacefully if not patiently for me to sit up and heed the call. There was this post by one of my favorite bloggers. There was an invitation in my email inbox for another 21 day meditation challenge (I admit, i never get farther than a week and a half, but this invitation came at just the right time) dedicated to 21 days of....gratitude. I was working on a post for Sagewomon blogs on resolutions for the spiritual new year, and the one that was most insistent on being included was--come on, say it with me--gratitude.

I like to think I'm good about being grateful. But when I'm being honest, maybe I'm sometimes a tad cursory about it, flipping off a thank you in the same vein as saying "have a nice day" to someone when you honestly couldn't care less about that person's day....not that you wish them a bad one, just....not invested in whether their day is good, bad or indifferent.  I've never been all that fond of Thanksgiving day, believing that what we learned about it in grade school 'history' class was a revisionist fable, and self-righteously declaring that we shouldn't need a government-appointed day to give thanks. But November really is a big lead-up to that day; it permeates the air like wood smoke this time of year. So it seems I need to take the not-so-subtle hint and take some serious time to revisit gratitude, to learn from Kelly at Minding My Nest, to take part in the (free)
21 Day Gratitude Meditation Challenge, and work on honing general thankfulness into something rich, deep and tangible, to experience Gratitude as a state of grace, and share it with you, if you'll allow me to.

Yesterday's meditation thought  (please note; you can pick it up at any time, even if you 'missed' the first day or two or ten...) was "With profound gratitude, I live my purpose." Well, this may not be the most thankful of thoughts, but as soon as I heard that, I was in a tizzy.  Purpose?!  Live my purpose?! Not by a long shot, buster! What I do to make a living is most definitely not my purpose and I'm not doing it with gratitude, that's for dang sure! 

Sigh. There goes the enlightenment train, speeding away from the station, me waving my arms like a fool as I run and trip along the tracks behind it.

But then my brain stopped clamoring. I let myself take in the glorious photography that accompanied the meditation, let the words roll over me, and then, like a butterfly landing in my open palm, I knew. I knew what I've known since I was--seriously, not making this up--eight years old. My purpose is a version of translation and expression: observing and taking in the world around me, processing it and then expressing it in a way that lets others--even just one person--recognize it & think that's what I felt/saw/thought but didn't know how to say! Forgive me if that sounds like hubris, because it isn't meant to be. I want to be.....am meant to be....a voice. I judge it, belittle my efforts, hide from it, but that is my purpose. And today, with profound gratitude, I'm claiming my purpose. Living it will come, perhaps in baby steps, but owning it here and now is worthy of heart-felt thanks.

How about you? Interested in sharing this gratitude journey? What is your purpose, and are you living it yet? 

Home Sweet Home

Home….the four letter word stuffed with so much meaning it looks like an ‘after’ photo in one of those flex trash bag commercials. It can be as simple as a shelter, as complex as love. It can warm the cockles of your heart (wherever cockles might be located; beside the left ventricle, perhaps?) or chill you to the marrow. 

When I was a child, home leaned more to the cold bones side of things. It wasn’t usually a safe haven, a place of warm fuzzies. Oh, there were moments, but home was found in the branches of the willow tree, or in the hollow behind a big lichen-speckled rock, hidden from view by shrubs. Always there was a book involved, and my refuge was in those pages. Every year my family loaded up the car: parents, three kids, camping gear, luggage, and set out at 2 am to head for some mid-Atlantic beach. It was a migration my parents—and I—lived for, landing somewhere between Ocean City, MD and Topsail, NC and we’d settle in for the week. I anxiously awaited the moment we hit the sand and I made my way to the water’s edge, standing juuuusst out of reach of the tide, imagining that with each wave that hit the sand the Sea was rising up to greet me; that first moment chilly, foamy water hit my toes I was being greeted, welcomed…..welcomed home. I would dip a finger into the water & taste it, a sacramental wine that was more communion than anything I’d felt at church. In moments I’d be up to my waist, then diving under, floating on my back, riding the waves to shore and heading back out again, a mermaid restored to the sea from whence she came. Sure, there were rough moments when She got a tad rough, and I felt like a cigarette butt being ground into the sand, but mostly I felt cradled, safe, at peace and joined, blood to salt water, like I belonged there above all other places. I always, always intended one day to live in sight, sound, smell….soul….of the ocean. As an adult, responsibilities conspired to keep me from the sea. There was a day here & there, but an awkwardness prevailed; it didn’t feel quite right to abandon the family to spend hours in the water, turning into a happy prune. Still more years later, I fell in love with the place I’d always lived, this river-kissed valley punctuated by assorted mountains.

I came to know sprawling farms, sunset mountains & dappled woods as my shelter, my place of peace. I’ve mentioned in other posts how, during the year spent living in Baltimore, I longed for the Hudson Valley, how we came off the Thruway on a house-hunting trip, came around a bend in the road, and suddenly tears poured down my cheeks as the snow-draped Catskills came into view, because I had so missed this place. Fast forward to this past week. Linda & I took our first vacation in four years, and went camping on Cape Cod. 

The weather was good, the Moon was full our second night there, we laughed long and hard at Kate Clinton & Karen Williams, ate fish and roasted marshmallows, snuggled under blankets and listened to fog dripping off the trees onto our tent. 

We bought spices, herbs and more at the Atlantic Spice Company, watched the sun set over the salt marsh, 

meandered Fall-bedecked New England roads. And on Saturday, we finally made our way to Herring Cove Beach. In season, this is Provincetown’s most popular beach according to the brochures, but on this cool, sunny late October day, we saw maybe two dozen people. It was mostly just us, sun, sky, breeze, sand, cormorants, a seal…and the sea. As we strolled at the water’s edge, I dipped a finger in the water and touched it to my tongue. The briny cool was as familiar as if my last visit was days ago, not years. 

But later, sitting in the sand with Linda, I realized it no longer felt like home. It was lovely and peaceful, but like visiting….a friend’s home, not mine. I looked at my beloved, wind-blown and lost in thought, her mind spinning with inspiration and plans. We’ve been together 9 years now….we’ve dreamed, planted, painted, learned, worked, laughed, cried, shared dogs, cats, chickens, bees (okay, we don’t actually share the bees!), planned, imagined, risked, sowed, reaped….together. It doesn’t matter whether we’re snuggled in a moon-bathed tent or sweating in the garden, caressed by a blanket of fog on the piece of mountain-view property we’re trying—hoping-- to buy or smushed on the couch with Yeti, Lola, Pip & Elf—one happy, eclectic pack. Home is no longer a place; it’s a state of being, a state of grace. Home is with…no, home is this womon. She is as simple as shelter, as complex as love, and the only home I’ll ever want.