Mid Winter Feast for the Eyes

Winter is certainly beautiful....and necessary. It is this part of the earth's long sleep that seems to seep right into our very bones...and makes sinking down into bed at night somewhere near delicious. Winter is when the cold translates into stillness and quiet in the outdoors unmatched to any other time of the year. It calls for reflection while you perform your best hygge inside with a fire and thick socks and the smells of bubbling soups and stews and fresh baked bread. As much as I enjoy walking with our dogs in the dark and looking up into the sky when the stars are their most crisp, their most brilliant....this recent long spell of deep cold and hard wind has me yearning for color and the smell of new earth.

Loving winter is not for the faint of heart this year. And so....I thought a walk through the gifts of color and texture that we receive during the other seasons of the year might hit just the right note....maybe you'll feel a hint of the sun on your shoulders and the grass in your toes before you return to the here and now of your day.

Spring Pastels~ when violets and lilacs and peonies add a bright contrast to the new grass.

The smells of spring are intoxicating...isn't that what 'they' say? I'm in!....and I think part of the allure of spring flowers and their scents is that we know how short lived they are. I spend two weeks every spring slowing my step as I move passed the mama lilac .... I breathe....I pause...what could be so urgent that I can't suspend time for just a moment to close my eyes and take it in?

Fruit Blossoms~ the first promise of apples and pears and even elderberries

The sweet scent of fruit blossoms is as delicate as the petals themselves. Sometimes, though, when you walk just close enough and slowly...a waft will hit you square in the face...calling you in...so that you put your nose in the same space of the bees....and take it in and allow it to lighten the heart and cleanse the soul.

And The Flowers March on~

And then there is a point where color is everywhere you turn....bright colors, deep colors, soft colors..an absolute party of blooming exuberance. This is their moment to shine....the flowers have been patient all year...give them the audience they so deserve!

When the House Smells of Herbs~

For months and months...fresh herbs are the perfume of our home. Whether they are in water for later use, drying in the dehydrator or hanging in all of their glory...there is no denying that tiny seeds have sprouted and grown and now feed us with the air and water and nutrients that they soaked in from the earth....imparting all of the good of the earth into us with every bite.

Sunflowers for the Win!

And the happiness that they bring! Sunflowers symbolize adoration, loyalty and longevity AND they are just plain lovely.

To me they scream pure unadulterated joy....like a child reaching up to the sky with both hands, a smile stretched for days across their face.

~Turn your face to the sun and then shadows follow behind you~

-A Maori Proverb

First Fruits...and Second....and the Third~

Anticipating the cherries turning red, the apples and pears ripening.....it is a distraction in and of itself over the days of summer.

Black raspberries....one for the bucket and one for your mouth. Picking raspberries

and grapes is a family affair.

And with it comes promises

of cobblers and jelly and

juice and with it the burst of sweet and sour and richness that comes with a long ripened fruit.

The Lush!

A point comes during the summer when everything is enveloped in green and the long grasses sway in the dance of life....moving in rhythm with the wind....

And then the Monarch Migration!

No pictures have encompassed the majesty of monarchs filling the air around you, lighting off of your trees and floating across your farm like they don't have any particular place to be. They come....we are transfixed....and then they go.

Who's Hungry for Spring?

As I sit here this early evening with more snow coming down and the cold strongly knocking at our door, I do dream of spring....and walking bare foot....being leisure in my movements outside...turning my face up to the sun.

And it will come....