The Year in Review

I'm borrowing this idea from a couple of different sources. My friends Nan, at Letters from a Hillfarm and Abbie, at Farmer's Daughter have recently posted the first lines of each month's first post from the past year. I really enjoyed reading their review of the year, and have done a similar post. So without further ado, here is my year in review.

January

I’m never sure whether to make a New Year’s Resolution or not.

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February

The world outside our windows is full of motion and light today. Fat drops of water are falling steadily from the icicles on the eaves. Wind is pushing walls of snow across the landscape. Birds are stretching their wings in the almost-forgotten joy of brilliant sunshine that pours like water through the bare branches and down across the hillsides. I couldn't put my boots on fast enough this morning. I had to get out into the glory of the morning!

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March

In the summer, one imagines that the wind is singing through the leaves in the trees. Yet in the barren, leafless days of winter, I still hear the wind in the trees. As I stepped out the front door of the house, I was immediately aware of three things: the sun was so bright I could hardly keep my eyes open, the cold air found every bit of skin I hadn't covered with snow gear, and the birch trees on the back hill were singing as the winter wind gave them a voice.
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April

Each time I look outside my windows I see birds in these days of early spring. I watch blue jays swoop around boldly as I wash dishes. Turkeys in the front yard distract me as I sit down to the computer to do school work. Normally cheery robins look a bit worried as they hop about on the cold ground, looking as if they weren't counting on there still being snow when they returned to the north
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May
There is so much light and color in the garden in these early days of May. I will let the flowers speak for themselves, through these photos. They sing their own prasies quite sweetly!

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June

Rain drips from glistening blossoms beneath a cloudy sky which promises more rain.

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July


Just a few photos from the garden after a week of rain... Too breezy for good clear shots, but here is what's growing in my garden on this windy hill. Orange Butterfly Weed, asclepius, above is opening in the butterfly garden, as is a tiny patch of purple asters.

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August

Last year, I wrote about a “Quiet Country” moment that I experienced while chaperoning a high school music department trip to NYC. (You can read that old post here.) This morning, I experienced the opposite. It is our town’s annual summer festival and this morning was the parade. Unfortunately, a huge rain shower was also on the agenda for the morning. I saw the clouds and grabbed an umbrella as we headed out to the parade. Limerick was at an estate sale, Senryu was working at the coffee house in the village, and the three younger kids and I were fortunate to be invited under a tent where a fund raiser was being run to watch the parade.
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September


What I notice most in these waning days of summer is not the flowers, though they are still blooming sweetly, nor the colors, though they are especially intense and vivid. What I notice most is the quality of the light. The way the sun slants through the sky to pour, nurturing and warm, across the earth takes my breath away.

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October

The photo above shows some yellow mums that bloomed in October 2008, and below you see the billowing clouds in an October 2007 sky. The last photo from October 2006, my first October as a blogger, shows the effects of an early cold snap. I am still without a camera, and did not have one to borrow today. Even if I had one to borrow, the wind and rains might have slowed me down! I was in and out a few times today, but spent time indoors in my own kitchen and at a lovely baby shower for a young woman who used to babysit my daughters "back in the day." She is expecting her own first child, another little girl. Now, my mulled cider is warming in the crock pot and the house is smelling good!
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November



Most people use the terms Autumn and Fall synonymously. For me, they are two different seasons. Autumn days intertwine with the days of late summer, with warm days and crisp nights and generous color in the trees. Fall begins unexpectedly one night as a cold wind rips the leaves from many trees at once, and in the morning the streets and sidewalks are paved with slippery, gold and brown leaf litter. This year, that windy night was Friday, leaving the trees in skeleton form just in time for Halloween.
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December


crystal petals fall,

a gift from heaven to earth,

flowers made of ice

– a haiku, by Aisling