New Year's Day 2010I went out and explored the yard today. It is amazing that there is so much life outside even though everything looks dead and barren at this time of year. We have many perennials that will come up next spring, but it's hard to believe that they will live through the winter.
It is easy to understand why people who lived an agrarian lifestyle celebrated the Winter Solstice - the shortest day of the year which falls around December 21st. We usually try to mark that day by taking a walk in the Glen, cooking a meal of root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, beets, parsnips), and lighting candles around the house. This year all the vegetables we cooked for our meal were from our own garden!
One of the reasons we like to pay attention to the Winter Solstice is because it is really where most of our ancient Christmas traditions come from. In fact, most religions have some kind of celebration of light around this time of year, so it seems important to give it a little attention. At the Winter Solstice we know we will begin to see more light each day and can look forward to Spring. I painted the picture below to commemorate the day.
The garden beds are covered with a lot of leaves and when I took photos of them they all looked the same! I've included a few pictures so you can see what they look like. These pictures aren't very interesting except by comparison, so I am putting pictures of the beds in full bloom also.
We went for our regular 2 mile walk as a family and then Saul and I put more wood at the back of the house for easy access when we are ready for it inside. It was cold out, but we have to spend these times outdoors in order to keep up with the wood. It is good for us to make that connection with the outdoors, even though sometimes we would rather just stay warm inside. We have used more wood so far than this year than we expected to, so we are still figuring out how to calculate how much we need for each year.
Saul's Winter Break
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