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| Holiday Greetings |
The winter solstice and the full Cold moon have passed. The Great Wheel of the seasons has turned again and Long Nights Time/Darkest Depths has waxed and waned.
Winter weather has yet to find us. Only a couple of dustings of snow and above seasonal temperatures have been our lot. Our fall cover crop of oats and peas is still thriving.
We may not have snow, but we have had Snow Geese.
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| Snow Geese overhead |
On our daily walks the whole week before Christmas, thousands of migrating Snow Geese passed overhead.
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| Look at all of the lines of geese |
It's really something exciting to experience. One day we were lucky enough to have a very large flock come down to feed in a harvested corn field right next to our path. (Also lucky Bob was carrying his camera!)
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| Coming in for rest and refreshment |
We still see some stragglers going over, but the big migration is done until March.
As regards our tasks and projects:
Bob's still working on the door he's fabricating for an upstairs bedroom. The old door frame won't accommodate the size of a modern door, so he's making one out of excess old floorboards. This will make the door like some of the existing doors upstairs.
He's also doing more research and planning for the remodel of the upstairs bathroom.
I'm nearly finished threshing our beans; only two more bushels to do. I hope to finish on December 31st and start the New Year fresh.
We're finally done with our apples! Since our weather has been so warm, our root cellar is not cooling down as well as it should, so we can't keep the apples fresh all winter.
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| Final batch of applesauce |
In addition to eating many apples daily, we cooked some smaller batches of applesauce in the crock pot. Some of this was frozen and some eaten fresh.
The remainder of the soft apples were spread in the woods behind our house for the wildlife.
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| Wild Turkeys by our garden fence |
The wild Turkeys that browse our woods really enjoyed them. They visited for several mornings. We saw a dozen together at times.
On the solstice we had a nice meal, relaxed and read.
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| Quiet holidays |
On Christmas we had another nice meal, played a game and walked the North Rim Trail at Taughannock Falls State Park.
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| Upper falls at Taughannock |
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| Gorge the falls empty into leading to high falls |
It was a nice and restful day.
We've never gone in for noisy and late New Year's celebrations, so as is our custom, we'll read, listen to good music and perhaps watch an old movie (Holiday Affair or Bachelor Mother).
With this full moon we entered Renewal Time. I think our New Year's observance supports this well. So, our goal for our current month is renewal on all levels: physical, mental and spiritual. (Of course, they're all of a whole.)
I'll leave you with a gallery of holiday trimmings around our house. Enjoy.
Peace and health to you all in the coming year. May calmness imbue your being.
Till next time,
Kathleen and Bob
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| Family postcards created by my late father in law |
