Sunday Stroll - Ahead of Time...

Because we are having company today and I'm not sure how much time I will have to get outdoors with my camera, I am going to post photos of my walk yesterday. It was a very cold day, but so inviting with its crisp freshness that I had to get out and walk. I headed to the mailbox, but took the time to look around in wonder at how the beautifully the season was moving through these hills.

I stood at the end of the driveway and saw, through veils of snow, the sun shining softly above the lake.

In my warm, heavy boots, I walked north along our country lane, heading up toward the mailboxes which are about a quarter of a mail from the house. Snow fell in soft, fat flakes all around me.

As I walked, each bit of color caught my eye. Some color was provided my nature; some by my neighbors.

I reminded myself as I walked that winter, despite what our senses might perceive as evidence to the contrary, is a nurturing season. The heavy blanket of snow insulates the roots of the plants from bitter cold. Boughs and branches cradle their soft catch of snowfall. Eventually, though it seems a long time to wait, all of this snow will melt into the ground providing sustenance to the things that grow here.

A little handmade signpost points up the hill to the home of the farmers whose lands surrounds us on three sides. Wind and weather have torn away the words that gave meaning to this signpost, but it seems to me that this arrow just points me toward home.

At sunset I went out again. The air was colder, and the sky lit up with color.

When my oldest daughter, who was out with friends, called to ask if I'd seen the moon, I went out once more. The moon was astonishly large and lustrous as it rose on the eastern edge of the sky. My camera could not capture the white luminosity, nor the visible features, of the moon's face, but caught instead its shine and glow.

photos by Aisling, January 10, 2009

Sunday Stroll Invitation

"There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country. A fine landscape is like a piece of music; it must be taken at the right tempo. Even a bicycle goes too fast."

~ Paul Scott Mowrer

I walk the hills and fields of my home and neighborhood fairly often, and must surely have the "feel" of this country imprinted on my soul by now. And yet each day, each slow walk down this narrow bumpy road, each quiet meander, brings something new.

If you have time to stroll today, and if your weather permits, please post about about it on your blog and then come back here with a comment and a link to your post. You may use the Sunday Stroll button at the top of this post on your post or side bar if you would like. I will add participant names to this post so other strollers can walk through your garden too.

Look who's strolling:

Margaret at Periodic Pearls

Abbie at Farmer's Daughter

Me, here at the Quiet Country House

Cloudhands at Uncarved Block

Joyce at Tall Grass Worship

Ruth at Everyday Woman

Tuesday at Home - Contentment

My children started back to school yesterday after their two week holiday break. I spent the morning buying textbooks for college with my oldest daughter and then came home and cleaned house. Late in the afternoon, about nine teenagers (two of them mine) arrived for a sledding party. The walked in the cold, cold air on our icy country lane up to an area they call the "bowl" for its shape. As you can imagine, that bowl shape provides a wonderful landscape for sledding.

Afterward they came back into the house and made hot chocolate and lemonade (not wintry but deliciously refreshing) and baked the cookie dough that one young man brought with him. My little boys got home in time to share in the hot chocolate and cookies, though not the sledding (they were at the bowl the day before with their dad.)

Today, the house is quiet. Nine year old Sijo stayed home from school with a sore throat and a slight headache, but he isn't feeling very poorly. Tuesdays, as you may remember if you read my blog often, are my "at home day." Though the main rooms are often cleaned up for company or just a weekly once-over, the corners become cluttered and untidy much too easily. I've been working on the piles in the corners of the master bedroom today. Everything ends up in there! The ironing board, my husband's work-related manuals, the laundry piles, the big box of gift-wrap... you name it!

As a break from heavy cleaning (definitely not my favorite thing) I am spending a little time in the kitchen. I have croutons toasting in the oven as I write this, made from what was left of the bread I baked on Sunday. Three fresh loaves are rising on the counter top.

There is nothing exciting going on this Tuesday afternoon at the Quiet Country House. Sijo is reading a collection of Peanuts comics in his bed, the cats are napping in sunshine streaming in through the windows, and I'm getting hungry smelling the aroma of olive oil and italian seasoning from the croutons in the oven. Whereever you are, however you are filling your afternoon hours, I wish you contentment.

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photos by Aisling, January 2009

Sunday Stroll - Glazed

The freezing rain that has been falling since some time in the night, has glazed over my world. A crust of ice on thesnow cracked and crunched as I walked up to the woods on the east border of our property. Ducking briars and slipping on the slick surface, I entered the quiet of the forest-world.

Last summers ferns are dry and golden, but they remind me of the sea of green fronds that I waded through just a few months ago. A vacant bird's nest reminds of the song that filled these nearly silent woods during those summer days. The woods are so quiet on this January afternoon that I can hear the hiss of a chunk of ice as it slides slowly downhill. The rose and blackberry briars pulled my hat off my head several times, as I ducked beneath them to find my way through this little forest without trails.

As I travelled down our back hill toward the swamp and the cornfield where the deer forage and sometimes bed down, I saw unexpected color.

My walk was crunchy, glazed, and serene; kind of a rural northern version of zen.

photos by Aisling, Sunday January 4, 2008

Sunday Stroll Invitation

"
There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you ..... In spring, summerand fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself."

~ Ruth Stout

A walk outdoors in Winter's enveloping quiet emphasizes that insulated feeling of belonging to yourself... and to your landscape and to your family. Our blanket of snow is being drizzled away by cold rain this morning, threatening the sledding party my daughters have planned for tomorrow afternoon. It is supposed to get colder and the rain is supposed to turn back to snow as the temperature falls, so perhaps by tomorrow afternoon conditions will be perfect for a long glide down one of our many hills.

If you have time to stroll today, and if your weather permits, please post about about it on your blog and then come back here with a comment and a link to your post. You may use the Sunday Stroll button at the top of this post on your post or side bar if you would like. I will add participant names to this post so other strollers can walk through your garden too.

Look who's strolling:
Abbie at Farmer's Daughter

Margaret at Periodic Pearls

Me here at The Quiet Country House

...

Seasons Within Seasons

Some of us enter January cautiously, I think, stepping carefully as if we are walking on uncertain ground. We will have to find our footing to move forward. What will we find beneath our feet in these cold days of January? Ice? Slush? Cold bare earth? What will we find in this year ahead? There is no way to know, so we look toward spring... walking toward the light and vibrancy that we believe in, despite the season at hand... and we begin to move in that direction, one well-placed step at a time.

Having analyzed my response to January, and having said all that I've written above, trepidation is hardly a personality trait that I want cultivate in myself. Rather, I want to live in January as fully and richly as I do in those days of light that I am walking toward. Last year I wrote about embracing winter. This is still a goal for me. I will be 45 late in this year, and do not want to continue that childlike habit of wishing time away. I tend to make goals, to plan for them, to strive for them... but I do not want to hurry toward them letting the days pass in a blur as I make a bee-line for my aspirations.

There are seasons within seasons, and I do not want to miss any of them. These early days of January may be sluggish and frozen in this northern region, but there will most likely come a few days late in the month where the sun seems to shine more brightly and the snow will melt away. We call this the January Thaw, a term that any of you who live in similar northern locales will be familiar with.

There are days in February when the ice finally freezes into a thick frozen blanket over the smaller lakes and ponds, and people around here shake the spiders out of their ice skates. Deep inside of February are days so cold that the snow snaps beneath our boots and our warm breath leaves our mouths and noses in frosty white clouds. Silence seems to hang in the air like a palpable thing, in that season, so thickly that any sound stands out in crisp relief. Those are the days when it is worth it to head out into the weather just for the experience of coming back indoors. It is then that I have the deepest realization that home is a haven; a place of warmth and comfort and familiarity. Let the winds outside the windowpane blow, and bring on the hot chocolate!

There are little micro-seasons in March that take my breath away with their promise. These are flirty days of warmth and color. This comes before spring, but winter always has her last hurrah, no matter what the calendar proclaims.

So, trepidation be gone! I am walking into January, stepping out onto Winter's path awake to all the nuances of the season... listening for the seasons within Winter that will speak to my heart.

photo by my daughter Haiku, January 1, 2009 - Is this dandelion really trying to bloom?

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To Resolve or not to resolve...

I'm never sure whether to make a New Year's Resolution or not. Pondering the concept of a resolution to guide my life through the next twelve months, I penned the following stream-of-consciousness acrostic poem.


Resolutions Illuminated

Resolutions are
Easy to make, but also
So easy to break. Only a life
Lived simply, with
Understanding and
Tender regard for the
Innnocent and vulnerable
Only a life where
Notice is given to
Small things, makes sense to me now.

Instead of resolutions, I now
Live moment by moment,
Letting nature's grace
Untangle years of good intentions.
Moving slowly, and
Intentionally, I go forward,
Noticing as much
As I can of this beautiful world;
Travelling upon the Earth as an
Eager guest, respectful and interested, and
Delighted to be here.

Most of the times I've written about "resolution" on this blog, I've been writing about the clarity of a photograph. If you're interested, you may look here for some of my previous thoughts on resolution, both intentions and clarity.

photo by my daughter Haiku, January 1, 2009