Labors of Love

May is going to be a busy month – that kind of crazy, happy busy that will fill all of my at-home moments with seed starting, garden bed preparations, and end of the month planting.  I’ll spring clean the chicken coop and begin work clearing out the wooded area right next door to their fenced-in enclosure so we can expand their playground.  My best friend is visiting at the end of the month for our annual greenhouse expedition and she’s tagging along with me to my first ever Fur and Feather Swap being held in Trenary on May 26^th.  I’m also in the process of working my way through a knitted peasant shawl pattern and the lace border has been giving me fits (I had to start the entire project over again).  My goal is to finish this shawl with my patience and good nature intact and then knit several more to give as Christmas presents to some of the women in my family.   

I have three months worth of vacation time saved up (the last time I took an entire week off was when I got married in August 2007) so at the board meeting in March I proposed that from the beginning of May until the end of September my five day work week be reduced to four.  The motion passed unanimously.    

One extra day off each week may not sound like much, but spread out over the course of the summer and autumn months, they are invaluable to this baby homesteader.  Those extra 24 hours will allow me to get so much more accomplished and give me the time to hone new skills (baking bread, brewing mead, wild crafting, and becoming a MUCH better knitter, are just a few at the top of my list).

The Rough and Demanding Life of a Chicken Guard Cat

Hippie Baby Blanket

 I've only been knitting seriously for about 5 months (I'm addicted!) and here is the first thing I've made for someone else. I call it the "Hippie Baby Blanket." I gave it to the daughter of one of our friends who just had a baby boy at the beginning of March.  I used a variegated yarn called "Strawberry Fields."

Friends know how to keep our ego's in check...

Nature Awareness Journal

I love the four seasons and winter has always held a special place in my heart ever since I was a young kid building snow forts and claiming victory over the ever growing mountain of snow at the end of our driveway... courtesy of the Green Bay City snowplows, of course.

The earth is resting now in its peaceful and well-deserved slumber, but the world has not gone entirely dormant…birds still visit my yard and find shelter in the pine trees and nourishment at the feeders I keep filled for them year round.  Deer and rabbit tracks lead me along meandering and diverging paths and I find that the woods are at their best during these cold and snowy months.  Places that were inaccessible to me in the summer and fall have let down their guard now that there is a foot or more of snow covering the ground.  I can hear the wind coming from miles away and I brace myself for it—my arms open wide, waiting in eager anticipation for the frigid blast of rushing air to wash over and through me.  

I Miss You Daddy...

"Oh, there will come a day, a twilight,

when I shall sink to rest

in deep wet moss and cool blue shadows

upon a mountain's breast.

And yield a body torn with passions

and bruised with earthly scars,

to the cool oblivion of evening

of solitude and stars."

(~Lew Sarett~)

Nature Awareness Journal

Living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I am surrounded by natural scenic beauty.  It’s everywhere I turn and I can’t help but feel a bit spoiled and rich.  Lake Superior is only a two- minute walk from my office and my favorite beach a 15-minute drive out of town.  I live 30 minutes “in-land” and am blessed with the opportunity to own property where I can have my gardens, raise animals, lose myself in the vast magical woods of my backyard, and take my dogs for long walks on the numerous hiking trails that begin just outside my door.  Wildlife is abundant and although there are others houses that dot our private road, we enjoy a relative semblance of solitude and privacy.

I spend the majority of my lunch hours (when I’m not running errands for work or picking up egg layer crumble at the animal feed store), exploring places that have been my favorite haunts for more than 20 years in the city where I work but no longer live.  A person can never go wrong spending quality time with Lake Superior in all her serene and turbulent moods.  One of my favorite hangouts during the past year has been Park Cemetery, a place brimming over with nature and history located smack dab in the middle of an urban neighborhood of a small northern town.  That place serves to remind me what I always knew as a kid growing up in a much larger city three hours south—that nature is all around us and we don’t have to take long day-trips to the country or state parks to immerse ourselves in it.  Nature’s voice can be drowned out by the traffic and city noise, but she still speaks to us…we only have to learn how to tune in to a different frequency.

 

A Peaceful Winter Solstice