Winter

Red-Tailed Hawk perched on a grapevine covered tree.


We have had a very mild winter so far. Nights may drop below freezing but day time temperatures rise above the ice-making threshhold of 32F. Yet, it still feels like Winter. Winter is about darkness. This part doesn't change from year to year. The sun peaks above our horizon after 7am (7:09am to be exact for 12/15/11) and sets before 5pm (4:16pm for 12/15/11). The darkness seems to come on suddenly but I think it's because I'm not paying attention. Shadows begin to lengthen by 2pm and the sun loses it's strength shortly afterward. On a cloudy day, it feels like day  has hardly arrived when the gloomy grey begins to become darker.
Preparing for the "Winter Holidays" helps us wade through the enclosing darkness. We must stay busy or else the darkness enthralls our thoughts and we can only think of our losses and misgivings. So, we prepare for celebration at the point of the deepest and longest night knowing that this is the very last one before the days lengthen, one day at a time until it's peak in June.  It is reason to rejoice.
"The light of man" carries deeper spiritual meanings. Where do we journey when we seek "the light" through our own darkness? Is it to a manger, or through the forest, or up to the stars, or over to grandma's house?

Grapevine wreaths made from the vines pulled from the trees about the property.

* "For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light", (Psalm 36:9) says David from the Old Testament.

* "Does Santa Claus exist?" asked Victoria. "He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy", says Francis Church (from the Sun editor's letter to Victoria; 1897).

* "Divine love makes us true to ourselves and to others. . . Divine love is the solution to our difficulties and problems. It frees us from every kind of binding. It makes us speak truly, think truly, and act truly. It makes us feel one with the whole universe. Divine love purifies our hearts and glorifies our being". says, Meher Baba, Indian Mystic (20th century).

"Nothing is lost in the circle of love" sings the Marie Sisters (from their song "Circle of Love" 2002)

Peace be with you.

Old Fashioned Gingerbread Cookie Ornaments

Ingredients:

Unbleached white flour

Molasses

Brown Sugar
Butter
Baking Soda
Ginger
Cinnamon
Salt
Cloves
Candied Cinnamon Dots or Raisins for buttons
Each of the cookies has a little jute or ribbon tie so it can be hung from a tree.

Christmas is a Season

Christmas is a season. A season come quietly and unnoticed. A season then shows signs of coming. Small at first, these signs grow and build and draw us closer to its presence and meaning. The antithesis of this understanding was "Black Friday", the designated first Christmas shopping day after Thanksgiving. This "first day",  instead, came in as an explosion of buying frenzy at the start of the bell of midnight. Too sadly,  it ended with pepper spray and police brigades by sunrise. Wow, what a way to start any holiday that is celebrative, meaningful, loving or giving. My dog behaves better than this no matter what is put in front of her. Isn't there a better way for us to behave, think and feel? Is this what has become of the "True Meaning of Christmas"?

For many of us what is "true" is defined by each of us in our own way, ultimately. It doesn't matter if I follow you or a profit or my own heart. The truth is only perceived by what I can comprehend and accept as true.  Anyway, storming WalMart for cheap electronics must have defined the "true meaning" for so many of these over zealous people for products, while providing them with one of our most elemental American experiences: buying power. Who am I to say that they "don't get it"?

What is true for me? I really don't know, to tell you the truth! What I can tell you is that the days become shorter and the nights become longer each day as we come closer and closer to the winter solstice. I can tell you that the forests now appear barren and the stone walls along the fields can be seen again. The evidence of global warming has given us an usually warm "long and late fall" but, despite this, winter is still coming. I have found that the increasing darkness makes us look inward, reflect, but also anticipate while we wait for light to return. For me, the Christmas Season is about waiting and watching. I don't believe that we must believe in objects and beings to help us understand what is true. However, is there any one common truth left for us to share? Is there anything that can make us find unity with each other, or with other living things or with this planet? Right now, it seems like achieving a purchase at WalMart is one popular wow moment. It definitely is not mine.  The wow moment is what we all must seek.

The Christmas Season, for me, evokes my desire to experience true meaning. Though, when I raise my eyes to the top of a tree and see the giant GosHawk or catch the shy presence of our resisdent Piliated Woodpecker, or take a walk in between the empty garden beds to pick the hardy parsley, I find true meaning - i.e. that wow moment. Through, spring, summer and fall, I can find true meaning. Through, the planting, weeding, watering and  harvesting, there is found meaning in the dirt and compost that gave me that tomato. Through, the giving of time, effort and help to others in need, creates true meaning. The Christmas Season allows me to organize all those moments into one story of what is the true meaning of my human existance.

A long time ago when my oldest children were young, I wrote a little children's song that summed it all up quite nicely. It goes like this:

I hold a stone in my hand, I hold a stone in my hand,
I hold a stone in my hand, crystalline formed though made from sand.
It is crystalline formed though made from sand.

I hold a plant in my hand, I hold a plant in my hand,
I hold a plant in my hand, green is the earth, the gift of the plants.
Yes, green is the earth, the gift of the plants.

I hold an animal in my hand, I hold an animal in my hand,
I hold an animal in my hand, but why do they run, but to greet the sun.
But, why do they run, but to greet the sun!

I hold a star in my hand, I hold a star in my hand,
I hold a star in my hand, with hand, and heart and mind I stand.
With hand, and heart and mind I stand.

Enjoy the Season.

Just as I finished this blog, a large buck wandered into our yard and over to the apple tree behind the garden. We tried to get a better picture but he was quite shy, picking his head up with every slight sound while making a stance to flee. The rain blurred our windows and stepping outside would have chased him away. I know deer and apple trees are not friends but he seemed only interested in the old apples that I had collected and dumped outside of the fenced garden near the brush pile.

Peace.

Getting to the roots, the last of the apple butter and winter isn't here yet.

It is December but it doesn't feel like it. Our November has had more days above  normal temperatures than expected for this time. People are describing our weather as a "prolonged fall season".  (Nice way to put global warming and irreversable climate change.) I confess, that it has been graceful to those of us who have procrastinated on our fall chores. It has been great, I admit, that I can still work the unfrozen soil and walk about with only a heavy sweater. One gardener once wrote that the gardening season starts in the fall, however. Oh boy, I say. I'm already behind then. I'm still marveling over what we have produced this season, and the "prolonged" gentle fall tempertures that have allowed kale, spinach and fall carrots and parsnips to remain in the ground. But, the guy is right. There is a lot of preparing this time of year. Maybe "it", the preparing for next year's garden, that is, starts when we have finally gotten "to the roots".
Getting to the roots has to happen before the ground is frozen. I mean by this that one should collect the root crops out of the soil before it freezes. It helps, anyway, if you want them before spring. (I don't know what would happen if you left them over winter. Would they turn to mush when the ground thaws?)
I have watched and waited through the weeks for the temperature to gradually drop and drop to finally bring us in this gradual way, day by day, toward the entry way of winter. Then, I thought, I would know, that it is finally time to pull everything that I want from the garden.
But, it hasn't happened. So, I decided to pull all the root crops anyway because it is December, and by now it only seems weird to leave them in the ground, rather than impractical to leave them.

Washed carrots and unwashed parsnips.

A lovely washed parsnip and carrot.

Another shot of one lovely well washed parsnip with carrots

The apple butter was a great success. I made labels and tied them up on the jars. With a loss for ideas, I came up with "Side of the Hill" Apple Butter, since the apple trees and our home, as well as the garden, sit on the 'side of the hill' .  Honestly, I wish we didn't. Anyway, that's what the labels say, if you can't make it out. The ingredients are listed with the blog post address and my phone number which is required for "residential kitchen" jams and jellies that are sold directly to consumers by the Department of Agriculture.
Inside the label reads: "Ingredients: apples grown without pesticides, organic sugar, apple cider, cinnamon, cloves and allspice." I posted on the WPI website:  "It is delicious spread on buttered homemade bread or used, instead of jam, on a peanut butter sandwich. It is also delicious as a unique glaze on grilled salmon."

I had 8pints and about 20, 1/2 pints. Kent put up a notice on his WPI classified site that apple butter was for sale with the above ingredients and comments. I was more than amazed that ALL of the butters that I had made up were gone before lunch.

I have sauce to make up more butter. So, I'm going to get busy over these next few days.
It is delicious, as I have been spreading it on homemade toasted honey wheat bread ever since I made my first jar this year. Yum, yum. It is soooo good! I'm done with Cheerios!