The Idle Season

While I wouldn't want to live somewhere it's summer year 'round, winter bores me. It's gray and brown hues, occasionally beautiful and white, are flat. My garden is barren, my home is cold and my car runs like it's powered by hiccupping ponies.

I find myself cooking to get through the quiet season. Cooking so much my kitchen is eternally the warmest spot in the house. Just ask the animals who all gather there to watch me make old fashioned molasses cookies, which smell divine in the winter air. Mince meat pies for Aj. Rum cakes and chocolate truffles. Pot roast and casseroles. Homemade noodles and a simmering crockpot with italian poorboys.

And when I've cooked our pantry empty, I'll (try to) sew. This winter's first project is to make pillow cases complete with zippers and fringe for the four throw pillows to grace our new couch. For as much as we spent on the supplies (40% off at that) we could've bought four very nice premade pillows. But then....I'd just need something else to do. I embroider things. I make little felt pincushions and pins.

Keeping busy is almost an obsession for me. I must have something to do in my hands. Idle time kills me. I can not stop doing something. You might even say I get cranky if I'm not occupied.

But then there are those nights when I get home late and step out of my car only to smell woodsmoke in the air. My home will be quiet, the kitchen dark and empty, the hallway cold. But in the living room, I'll find an orange and yellow fire, the tv on low and my husband waiting on the couch with a quilt for us to snuggle together under. At that moment I find my crazy must-do-something drive shrivel and die on the spot. On those nights I won't pick up a book to read, or a spoon to reheat dinner with. There'll be a pizza already warming in the oven, wine on the counter (because pizza and wine go so good together :) ) and nothing for us to do but veg and laugh. Those nights calm my sometimes frantic pace and give me time to truly appreciate all the things that we work so hard for. I'm reminded that winter is the Sunday of our seasons. I work spring, summer, fall, planting, growing, harvesting, storing, canning. There must be a time of rest. A season of peace. The earth in my garden sleeps. Our chickens slow their production of big brown eggs. Other animals hibernate winter away. I too should slow.

Welcome winter. Welcome snow, ice and wind. The moon draws closer to the earth, it's face so clear in the black night's air. Let the earth sleep. And let the joy of home be all the warmth I need this quiet season.