 Join Susun on Dec 3-4: Work-exchange Weekend
Message From Susun ...
With a sweep of icy air December blasts our cheeks red. The leaves are raked. The tipi is down. The plants are all inside. The compost has been moved to the gardens. Now we finally get to clear the barn and make a new compost pile. Do join us for the last work exchange weekend of the year. It is always one of the most joyous and heart-felt as we kiss each part of the land goodnight, awaiting its blanket of snow. I hope you have been letting yourself get cold this past month. It is such an important primer for a healthy immune system. If you haven't, it is not too late. Sleep with the window open like Juliette deBairacli Levy did all her life. (Even in Switzerland, I am told.) Turn the heat way down. I heat only with wood, so it is fairly easy for me to chill out in the late fall and early winter. In fact, I have yet to make a fire, though the house does get warm when I bake and I am baking more, so the house is warm. Cornbread last night; apple pancake the night before. The latest I ever went without a fire in my house was until two days past winter solstice. To celebrate that solstice, we made our beds in the tipi, and burned an entire fallen dead white pine tree that we had cut and split, keeping our fire going from dusk to dawn, with snatches of sleep as we needed. What a night!
What a warm winter that was, until January hit. Then it was one of the coldest I remember. Warm so far this winter, but it could get cold, really cold, really fast. When I lived in the Canadian Rockies, moose would wander across my yard on the coldest nights, with the thermometer settling near 40 below zero Farenheit! Warm was a concept, not a sensation those nights. My kindling pile is high, and I have plenty of firewood stacked outside and inside. Blow winter wind, blow. The tears in my eyes are tears of joy. I love the cold. Green blessings,
Susun Weed susunweed.com |