Celebrating the solstice moments -- finally!

The summer here was long and brutal, and a strange kind of aprés summer stuck around until well after Thanksgiving. When we did our family "frisbee at the beach" morning on Thanksgiving, we stopped running around in the sand after about half an hour or so because it was just too damn hot to play. It was even too hot and humid just sitting in the sand, doing nothing. Not typical beach weather for this area, to be sure. Thankfully, I suppose.

The chickens also had ill effects from the warmer weather, in that they had a longer and more severe molt than I've ever seen them have before. The worst part about that is not the coop, which looks like there's been a massive down pillow fight inside it, but the fact that while chickens are molting, they lay NO eggs. So from about the end of September until last week, we had to resort to buying eggs at the store.

And then it cooled off -- finally -- and winter's magic began to happen.

Chickens once again gave us eggs.

The garden started producing lettuce, enough for salads every single night!

And when it froze hard a couple of nights ago, I was able to begin digging my fall potatoes and they are AMAZING. If you've never had newly dug potatoes with some butter, sour cream and chives on them, you have not lived. Really. 

Our eggplants were harvested just before the frost too, which means eggplant parmesan soon!

In between all that we've been getting ready for holidays and doing a little clean up before we put the house on the market early next spring (probably February, which is spring for us). And dreaming of what next year will look like in our first Oregon holiday season. Not many houses on the market up there right now, but I still look, we talk about what we're looking for, and we dream.

That's where it all begins. But to forget the colorful bounty in the present seems ungrateful, so this year especially, we celebrate the now while looking forward to the "then." Hope you're doing the same!

Time of Darkness....and Light

Lights.

It always seems kind of strange to me that the winter solstice is nowhere near the middle of winter...for most of the country, it's more a harbinger of weather to come rather than a mid-point in the season. In my latitude, the summer solstice is the same way. We know on June 21 that summer is just getting started and that the worst (for us) is yet to come. Yet both events mark the extremes in our days -- they will begin getting longer after today, and on June 22 the days will begin to shorten. 

Perhaps more than anything, a solstice celebration is a reason to hope. Oh sure, we know the worst weather is still ahead of us, but also have tangible proof that it isn't going to last forever. In another month or so it will be lighter -- a full half-hour later than it is right now. 

I am not a summer or long day kind of person; my favorite time is this, when days are short but nights are long. Perhaps it's because I worked nights at an Observatory for several years when I was in my 20's, but I think dark nights are the best times to be doing things, especially during this month, when we light them up with colorful decorations and candles. It's actually the one time of year when, to me, there's no such thing as light pollution -- as long as they are cheeful and colorful, the more lights the merrier.

The dark mornings also provide a wonderful, quiet setting to contemplate the close of the year. Such a cliche to talk about how fast the time flies, but our lives move so quickly nowadays that it's sometimes helpful to set aside an hour or three and just think about what's happened in the last 365 days. What was the general mood of your year? Was it frantic, exciting, slow-paced, angry,  blissful or gentle-paced? What milestones did you see pass in 2016?

As we watch the sun set tonight at what would be mid-afternoon for many if it were summer, may we understand where we've just come from and where we want to go, so that once the light returns it will find us with a plan and a purpose, doing what we need to do to get where we want to go. Or if you've arrived at your best destination in life and there is nowhere you want to go, may you find yourself still right here next year, with all bits and pieces intact.

My year personally has been fruitful, and less hectic than 2015 was, although with a decidedly strange autumn due to election madness, which I kind of watched from a distance (and still do). How was your year, in total? One for the books or one for the shredder?

I hope your solstice brings enlightenment and purpose no matter what you've just gone through in this last trip around the sun, and I hope your dark night is spent in a warm place, filled with cheerful warmth and contentment as we officially head into True Winter.

Winter's rest

These next couple of weeks I'm completing the chore list I made when I decided to take an extended vacation from working at the winery back in November. The break turned out to be a great idea, and I've gotten more done in the last six weeks than I did the entire year before that. I plan on doing the same thing at this time next year. It just wraps up the year's end nicely to be able to make a significant dent on the list, giving space and room for whatever shows up in 2016.

But of course the items still left on my list are the ones I least enjoy doing, which is how they ended up at the bottom of the list -- isn't that always the way? If you hate sweeping, you'll do almost anything to avoid it, including a bunch of other chores you tell yourself need to get done more. 

Anyway, one of those bottom-of-the-list things which I'm finally getting to today is taking Sputnik into the vet's office for his rabies shot. The last time he got one he developed an allergic reaction in the form of a HUGE knot on his back, so this time I'm making sure the shot is done by the vet in a medical environment, where he can receive immediate treatment if he has a reaction. But as Sputnik does not ride in the car very frequently, a trip to the vet is stressful for both of us.

I have a few more things on my list before I return to work about mid-month, but when you have property, the list never really gets completed. New things and seasonal chores show up on the horizon just as old chores get marked off. 

But the break has been good for me in other ways as well, more than just getting stuff done. It's allowed me to return to living a little more in the moment -- to have several days in a row when there's nothing mandatory on the schedule to be done that day, which seems to be something necessary to really get stuff done around here. Creativity flows when time is in abundance, there's a creativity in scheduling things as well, so you can flow well from A to B to C, etc.

They only thing around the homestead that's new is that we are getting two Yuzu trees in a few weeks; they were my Christmas present from Big Ag and I couldn't be more thrilled. The Yuzu is a Chinese citrus which tastes like a cross between a tangerine and a lemon, which is quite cold-hardy and therefore a possibility for us to grow here, where temps regularly dip into the 20s in winter. 

I've picked out the most temperate place in our yard -- the south side by the house -- to place them, and will look forward to seeing how they do once they show up. They also love poor soil, so the rocky dirt that makes up our hilltop may be perfect for them.

I'm hopeful, anyway. And I start my Master Gardener classes in a few more weeks, too, so now the trick will be to not end up over-scheduled and burned out again, but to still leave myself enough time to work, enjoy life and get things done around the property. 

Same thing everyone else is probably striving for, right?

The long shadows, one-third in

The thing I love most about being outdoors at this time of year is the low sun and long shadows, pointing north, which seems to make the sky and ocean both a deeper shade of blue and which illuminates the tops of the dormant grasses on the hills, giving them an otherwordly sheen.

It's honestly my favorite time of year, in no small part because of the cooler temperatures. It's always possible to warm up if you're in a cold climate -- hot drinks, heat, fires, or warm bath. But it's not always possible to cool off in the worst of summer's heat, for some reason. The decks are loaded against us cool-weather lovers. But that doesn't matter. We have our elysium in the here and now of this solstice month.

The solstices are, respectively, usually on or close to December 21st and June 21st. This week I've seen a lot of posts celebrating that from now on, the days will be getting longer. I tend be happy on the summer solstice because I know that at that point the days will be getting shorter.

But of course we all know that the summer and winter solstices appear nowhere near at the end of the respective seasons they reside in. In fact, they actually occur about one-third into each season they appear in. 

On June 21st, for instance, we in the south still have the bulk of summer ahead of us. We'll be hot until October, so even the Autumnal Equinox in September is no harbinger of any seasonal change. And I'm sure my friends east of here will attest to the fact that some of winter's harshest days come after Christmas, in the months of January, February and March when there are no presents, lights and decorated trees to cheer you.

Nonetheless, perhaps like the Christmas holiday itself, the sun's travels through it's appointed dates -- solstices and equinoxes, are symbolic of things to come, and very simple reasons to have hope. In June, some part of me understands that now we will begin the slide that will ultimately end in winter. And that all I have to do is wait.  For those of you in snowy areas, surely the days growing longer is a cause for hope, even if an acutal change in temperatures is months away.

And so, for those of you celebrating Christmas, it's a holiday all about hope, right? And so we all have that in common this time of year. I wish all of you a happy solstice, happy Christmas, and happy New Year. Enjoy both the reality of the season and the hope of what's still to come. The present holds our joy, but it's hope for the future that holds our dreams. And so with life, so with the solstices of our sun.

Winter is finished!

Well, maybe not the season, but the winter barn quilt is finished.  One down, three to go.  And they are actually much easier and more enjoyable to do than I'd anticipated. Each one is 4 feet by 4 feet, so it's not an overwhelming size to paint.

 I'm ready to see some bright, new colors since winter is a bit drab, except for the dash of evergreen and the deep blue of a winter's sky.  Plus grey and white for clouds and fog, of course.  So starting with spring's quilt next week, COLOR will be the word of the day!

The Season of Green

Green is slowly returning

November typically marks the return of green to our area, after what always seems to be an endlessly long and brown summer.  We've had an inch and a half of rain over the last couple of weeks -- not enough to end our drought, but definitely enough to replenish the dry ground to a point where the green grasses and other native brush are just starting to emerge again.

Not just grass, but roses too!

When people come into the winery at the end of the summer and I tell them that in November all those brown hills will emerge in a kind of green haze which will grow and become more colorful until we positively look like Ireland by springtime, they always look at me like I'm slightly daft. After all, the vineyard grapes are turning various shades of brown, orange and yellow by then, which is what most folks typically equate with fall. But for us, November not only marks the end of the grape-growing season, but also green season for everything else -- everything native -- and this will last until about June.

And even the backyard vegetable gardens start to spring forth with new life again, as winter gardening is not only possible, but quite popular here. Truly, fall, winter and spring in this area are the seasons of life. Summer is for surviving. 

I know some folks love fall for the beautiful turning trees and the coming of snow, but for me, I'm always excited to see the return of green after many long, brown months.

Pretty red pomegranates, ripe for the picking.

 

 

Onions, scallions and lettuces are coming up, too.

First Day of Fall

The first day of fall in these parts always, and I do mean always, feels like summer.  Yesterday was no exception, it was about 90 degrees and sunny.  Fall creeps in steadily here, like smoke under the door, gentle, quiet and, at first, unnoticeable. She will first be providing us with colder evenings (low 50s and down into the 40s by next month), and then will mercifully keep shortening the length of the day by a minute or two until the heat can no longer make a stand during the afternoons. That's how it happens here.  The trees will not change color until November, and it will probably still feel like fall until just a couple of weeks before Christmas.  Then winter will set in for good and we will kiss our all-to-brief fall goodbye.

It is safe to say that I am weary of summer, yet I still count my blessings in regards to the many foggy, cold mornings we had in July and August, along with pleasant 80-degree days.  This summer was not a bad one at all, as far as temperatures go, but I am still ready for a change in seasons.

So now the wait for rainfall begins, especially at the end of this extremely dry year -- a record breaker out here in the west.  But before then we have a roof to repair and pellet stove to do the annual service on, so hopefully we can get all that done before the (hopefully) wet season sets in.

Fingers crossed on all accounts, especially for timely, heavy rain. 

In the meantime, we in the west wait earnestly for that first fallen leaf of autumn.