Thursday, December 31, 2009

Poetry Thursday - Year's End


As a blue moon rises over the waning year
spilling soft light through cloud-lace,
and tree shadows,
we burrow into the comfort of home.

Warm air from the woodstove
curls through hallways,
through doorways,
through the memories of bygone days.

Stories rise like the moon,
up through gales of laughter,
up through tears of loss or longing,
like ribbons, weaving things together...
weaving us together.


~ a poem for New Year's Eve, by aisling, 12/31/2009






Wednesday, December 30, 2009

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





Sunday, December 27, 2009

Sunday Stroll - Once More With Feeling


Maude and I headed out into the brisk afternoon for one last stroll of the year. The cold wind tugged at our hair, and a bittersweet ache tugged at my heart because I know that Maude doesn't have many more strolls to take through these gardens with me.

Here, at the trail head of the butterfly garden, is a quiet place to sit and think... But Maude and I kept moving down the snow-covered trail, between the bent and broken stalks and the flower heads clinging to a few last seeds.


We walked past the quiet pond, where cattails with their brown velvet crowns rise above a thin layer of snow-dusted ice. My heart lifted with the tiny bit of "frisk" in Maude's gait.

We trudged through the deep rectangular impression left by 13 years of tending a vegetable garden in the same place. The herb gardens are caught in drifts, with stalks rising above the snow here and there. Most of the plants look like this white and withered Bell of Ireland...
but we found one tiny yellow lettuce blossom blooming amid surprisingly fresh, green leaves.

Maude crossed the road and wandered through the barren hay field, nibbling snow and sniffing the December wind.

The wind pushed us toward home. The front garden, a mass of untrimmed stalks, frames the hills, fields, and the lake where Maude has run and played for most of her years.


Looking back over my shoulder at those familiar hills, I walk back to the house with Maude at my heels and together we move into the warmth and comfort of our home.

Where ever you are, whatever the weather, I wish you good company.
To share the strolls of other bloggers, please scroll down to my previous post where links are provided.
all photos by Aisling, December 27, 2009

Sunday Stroll Invitation


"Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us." ~Hal Borland


If you have time this week for a Sunday Stroll, to walk into whatever weather the last Sunday of the year offers, please 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 sidebar if you would like. I will add participant names to this post so that other strollers may walk through your garden too. I'll check back as often as my day allows and try to keep the list updated. Enjoy the day!

Look who's strolling today:

Abbie at Farmer's Daughter
Me, here at the Quiet Country House
Cloudhands at Uncarved Block

Thursday, December 24, 2009

A Christmas Wish...


Wherever you are, whatever the weather, I wish you the comfort of traditions, the beauty of believing, and all the joys of this season!

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Sunday Stroll - A-Flutter

The crest of
mid-December
and
all
is
a-flutter.

Snowflakes tumble,
Flags wave
Leaves shiver,
And trails wander away.

Paper snowflakes twist on ribbons,
As the cold settles in,
and the days slowly roll by,
while hearts are all a-flutter.



Where ever you are, whatever the weather, I wish you the joys of the season.





For strolls by other bloggers, please scroll down to the previous post.


all words and photos by Aisling, December 20, 2009










Sunday Stroll Invitation

“Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace."
~May Sarton

It was the last week of a semester and the first week that I focused on Christmas preparations and gift shopping. There were also after school activities for the kids, my birthday mid-week, and school holiday parties on Friday. After that week, which passed in a snow-white blur, I need to take a deep breath and consider the wisdom of May Sarton's words. I need to be set back into the slow circles of nature, as she suggests, though the garden trails are thick with snow.

If you have time this week for a Sunday Stroll, to walk into whatever weather December offers, please 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 sidebar if you would like. I will add participant names to this post so that other strollers may walk through your garden too. I'll check back as often as my day allows and try to keep the list updated. Enjoy the day!

Look who is strolling today:

Ruth at Musings of an Everyday Woman
Margaret at Periodic Pearls
Abbie at Farmer's Daughter
Me, here at the Quiet Country House

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Sunday Stroll Invitation

"The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper." ~ Bertrand Russell

December is a waiting time in house with children, isn't it? They are waiting for magical things, for Christmas, and the lively colorful days at the end of December. Today, it seems as if all the world outside my windows is waiting too. Clouds are gathering in the sky, waiting to let more snow fall. Maybe it will fall as we head out to get our Christmas Tree this afternoon.

If you have time this week for a Sunday Stroll, to walk into whatever weather December offers, please 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 sidebar if you would like. I will add participant names to this post so that other strollers may walk through your garden too. I'll check back as often as my day allows and try to keep the list updated. Enjoy the day!

Look who is strolling today:
Margaret at Periodic Pearls
Brenda at Cozy Little House

Sunday, December 06, 2009

Sunday Stroll - Shining Hills

It has been snowing for days now, and when the sun peeks through the clouds the hills shine, and the tree tops glitter with the snow caught on the branches.

My sons put on their winter gera and headed outside with their sleds this afternoon. The wild flowers have donned their winter hats as well.





The cold wind was tugging at the fraying birch bark as I passed by.



This chair along the southern trail near a bubbling freshet in the creek shows how much snow we have gotten in the past few days.


Where ever you are, whatever the weather, I wish you sparkling days.



all photos by Aisling, December 6, 2009


Sunday Stroll Invitation

"Trees
glitter like castles
of ribbons, the broad fields
smolder with light, a passing
creekbed lies
heaped with shining hills;
and though the questions
that have assailed us all day
remain — not a single
answer has been found –
walking out now
into the silence and the light
under the trees,
and through the fields,
feels like one."

From "First Snow" by Mary Oliver

Though Mary Oliver's beautiful poem from American Primitive is entitled "First Snow," the images and wisdom she expresses are true even on the fourth or fifth day of snow in a row. I agree with her; walking out into the winter landscape feels like an answer to questions that have been rattling around inside one's mind.

If you have time this week for a Sunday Stroll, to walk into whatever weather December offers, please 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 sidebar if you would like. I will add participant names to this post so that other strollers may walk through your garden too. I'll check back as often as my day allows and try to keep the list updated. Enjoy the day!


Look who's strolling today:
Cloudhands at Uncarved Block
Me, here at the Quiet Country House

Thursday, December 03, 2009

Poetry Thursday - Snowfall



cystal petals fall

a gift from heaven to earth

flowers made of ice


a haiku, by Aisling, December 3, 2009




all photos by Aisling, December 3, 2009