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 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:

Heather at Heather's Homemaking

Jessica at Four Square School House

Ruth at Musings of an Everyday Woman

Cloudhands at Uncarved Block

Me, here at the Quiet Country House

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

Small Touches

Yesterday our children put the nativity set in the hutch. With four of them working, it was done in just moments. Only one figure was dropped; a shepherd boy who survived his fall without a scratch.

This afternoon, with the little ones in school, I hung the stockings up along the staircase. When Haiku got home from school she helped me make a Countdown to Christmas garland for each of the boys, from tiny chocolate candies knotted up in colored plastic wrap. Little ribbon bows separate the candies. The boys can untie and eat one each day through Christmas, beginning tomorrow. By counting the remaining candies they can answer that one question asked so often in December by the young and young at heart: How many days until Christmas?I pulled a big pile of Christmas picture books out of a closet to read to my sons this month. These books have accumulated over the past 19 years since our oldest child was a tiny tot. I do remember her eyes all aglow over the tiny details, as she saw from her earliest days that there is love sewn into every stitch of our homespun Christmas.

photos by Haiku, November 30, 2009

Sunday Stroll - Sanctuary

I followed the sound of a lone bird's call, down past the cornfield,

and into the woods.

Sun light pouring through green cedar bows surrounded me,

as I walked to the braided tree at the heart of this forest sanctuary.

I followed the trail to the lake, so quiet in late November.

The sky was reflected in the mirror of the water,

as swans drifted... seeming to swim through clouds... through trees... through tangled brambles.

I walked along the northshore through white birches,

and in and around dangling jewel-red berries,

stepping carefully over fallen branches beribboned in yellow mold, trying to leave no trace of my footsteps.

I turned toward home and looked through the long rows of pale corn to the dim and cloudy sky.

Those muted colors of sky and field

-- pale gray, soft gold, and merest suggestion of blue --

were echoed by the stones at the edge at the road.

Where ever you are, whatever the weather, I wish you joy in quiet moments.

all photos by Aisling, November 29, 2009

To see more strolls, by other strollers, please scroll down to the post below.

Sunday Stroll Invitation

"Time is a brisk wind, for each hour it brings something new... but who can understand and measure its sharp breath, its mystery and its design?"

~ Paracelsus

November has certainly flown by, as if upon a brisk wind. That wind has torn the leaves from the trees and left a different landscape. The skeletal trees and deflated fields, with their tall grasses laying prostrate upon the earth or cut to a rough stubble, are a part of the "mystery and design" of this quiet season.

If you have time this week for a Sunday Stroll, time to walk slowly while time rushes briskly by, 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:
Heather at Heather's Homemaking
Margaret at Periodic Pearls
Me at the Quiet Country House