First Snow

We finally woke up to some white winter mornings this week that were so silent and still you could hear a crow’s call clear as a bell from across the fields. As soon as the sun would peek up over the hills it all began to sparkle like thousands of little diamonds. This is one of my favorite parts of Winter that we only seem to get a little taste of around here. It’s important to appreciate it while it lasts, because often by the time the sun climbs to late morning, it’s all melted away and gone. These are good mornings to light beeswax candles, curl up by a warm fire and eat blueberry pancake breakfasts.

On this occasion, my children and I enjoyed the first snow of the new year in a new home. On New Year’s Eve I moved into a little farm cottage on a twenty-acre orchard just down the road from the permaculture farm where I spent this Fall as an intern. My new home is a cozy little cottage above a farm shed with windows all around looking out at the farm, the fruit trees and a large pond visited regularly by water fowl. My son said it feels like living in a fire lookout tower. We often see jays and squirrels romping and chattering in the tree branches right outside the windows, and I wonder if they’re looking in at us to watch the people show for the day.

The most exciting thing about the place, even above all I’ve mentioned, is the sturdy little Jotul cast-iron woodstove. It’s very much like the one I left behind at my farmhouse that I loved so dearly, only smaller and appropriately sized to heat the space. I hadn’t realized how much my life had centered around my woodstove until this Winter rolled in and I was living without it. It was quite literally at the center of my home, providing warmth, light, comfort, cheer on dark grey days and a place to dry things and keep fermenting foods warm. Without it, my life was missing a hearth. So, you can imagine my sheer delight at having a woodstove in the center of my home once again. The Winter suddenly does not feel quite so long anymore.

With 20 acres to run wild on, my kids are already heading out for a lot of expeditions. Between the pond, the orchard, the patch of woods and an impressively dense bamboo forest, adventures in nature abound. My daughter and her best friend have already laid out grand schemes to backpack off to a corner of the property and camp out this summer. I feel like they’re finally getting a taste of the spaciousness I had in my childhood home on five acres bordering hundreds of acres of timber land. It’s a good feeling when you’re a child to be able to just wander off on your own adventure in the outdoors. Having already observed ducks, deer and nutria from my kitchen window, I think there will be plenty of opportunities here for wildlife encounters to shape the lives of young naturalists.

We wasted no time getting our little fairy houses set up in a whole elaborate village around a tiny pond by the long stairway leading up the hillside to the front door of the cottage. It couldn’t have been a more perfect spot with all the rocks and nooks and crannies around it, and I don’t think we’ve ever set up such a fine fairy village before. I must say that it looked rather magical covered with the light dusting of snow.

So, as Winter goes along I am settling into this new life and tending a new hearth. I’m still missing my homestead, but am managing to create a life for myself that looks as close to what I’m wanting as possible, and there’s a lot there to be happy about. Seasons will keep changing, I’ll keep growing, life will keep unfolding and my dreams will keep on being discovered and realized. Right now in the still of winter, it’s a good time to think and reflect about all of these things so that we can see what new things emerge in the Spring. The coming seasons are brimming with possibilities.