Whenever I'm overtaken by the winter blues, I turn my attention to blue -- my favorite color, which appears in unique shades only during the winter and gives my heart a lift.
The most magically beautiful blue: Full moon on snow. This is like a bright, sunny day with an indigo filter over it, etching long, sharp shadows and crisp details into a blue-and-white world.
Its opposite: The day after a fresh snowfall. The sky, as my spouse calls it, is "severe clear," giving sheets of azure above sheets of dazzling white.
In between: Pastel tints of bluish lavender outlining the contours of the land beneath the snow and crossing it with shadows. Reflected above in cloud striations that promise more snow to come.
Then there's ice: Frozen waterfalls down escarpments, where groundwater is captured in the act of succumbing to gravity, its minerals glowing teal through silvery masses.
Local people harness the same flow into free-form ice sculptures by sticking a hose into a spring and letting its pressure spray the surrounding landscape. These accumulate into huge, sea-blue mounds that can last until May! I guess that's their way of dealing with winter blues.
Carolyn Haley
Books at: http://carolynhaley.wordpress.com
Editing business at: www.documania.us
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Remember our feathered friends
February is National Bird-Feeding Month, did you know? I'm happy to learn that this activity rates the attention of people who decide such things!
For me, every month is bird-feeding month. I invite wild birds into my yard for two reasons:
(1) I love having them around, easy to see from the window or while puttering in the yard. Also, my mom is an avid bird-watcher and enjoys the show when she visits. Birds are my neighbors; my companions; my entertainment; my reminder of what's going on out there in the natural world.
(2) Birds are also a gardener's friend, feasting on bugs that might otherwise feast on my vegetables. As well, they spread seeds around, resulting in delightful surprises.
A third reason, which I don't like to think about, is habitat destruction and climate change, which are making it harder for birds and other critters to survive. So I feel obligated to provide an additional food source for them.
Mostly, though, birds are part of the whole garden equation: soil, plants, bugs, birds, bees, butterflies, mammals, water, sun, and the eternal cycle of birth-growth-death. And this time of year, the tail end of a hard winter, food is particularly scarce for wild things. No matter where you live, there are birds that could use some extra seed or suet to help them along.
Here at (approx.) latitude 43N, longitude 72W, and altitude 1300 ft., our midwinter bird population comprises a dozen chickadees; one or two each of titmouse, red- and white-breasted nuthatch, and downy and hairy woodpeckers; the recently arrived red-bellied woodpecker; a family of crows and at least one pair of ravens; wild turkeys in male (5) and female (15) groups; intermittent mourning doves and ruffed grouse; around ten noisy blue jays; invisible but occasionally heard barred owls; and every few years (this is one of them), visiting flocks of redpolls. Most of these feathered friends await my arrival with freshly filled sunflower and thistle seed tubes, along with a brick of suet, every morning.
If you don't already feed the birds at your place, brighten up your February and start!
Carolyn Haley
Books at: http://carolynhaley.wordpress.com
Editing business at: www.documania.us
For me, every month is bird-feeding month. I invite wild birds into my yard for two reasons:
(1) I love having them around, easy to see from the window or while puttering in the yard. Also, my mom is an avid bird-watcher and enjoys the show when she visits. Birds are my neighbors; my companions; my entertainment; my reminder of what's going on out there in the natural world.
(2) Birds are also a gardener's friend, feasting on bugs that might otherwise feast on my vegetables. As well, they spread seeds around, resulting in delightful surprises.
A third reason, which I don't like to think about, is habitat destruction and climate change, which are making it harder for birds and other critters to survive. So I feel obligated to provide an additional food source for them.
Mostly, though, birds are part of the whole garden equation: soil, plants, bugs, birds, bees, butterflies, mammals, water, sun, and the eternal cycle of birth-growth-death. And this time of year, the tail end of a hard winter, food is particularly scarce for wild things. No matter where you live, there are birds that could use some extra seed or suet to help them along.
Here at (approx.) latitude 43N, longitude 72W, and altitude 1300 ft., our midwinter bird population comprises a dozen chickadees; one or two each of titmouse, red- and white-breasted nuthatch, and downy and hairy woodpeckers; the recently arrived red-bellied woodpecker; a family of crows and at least one pair of ravens; wild turkeys in male (5) and female (15) groups; intermittent mourning doves and ruffed grouse; around ten noisy blue jays; invisible but occasionally heard barred owls; and every few years (this is one of them), visiting flocks of redpolls. Most of these feathered friends await my arrival with freshly filled sunflower and thistle seed tubes, along with a brick of suet, every morning.
If you don't already feed the birds at your place, brighten up your February and start!
Carolyn Haley
Books at: http://carolynhaley.wordpress.com
Editing business at: www.documania.us
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Snow diamonds
With the exception of New Year's weekend, the temperature here has held below freezing for weeks and weeks, during which we've had multiple snow dumps adding up to 3+ feet. Most of that time has been overcast and often windy -- making, altogether, for a some serious winter.
It also makes for the best of winter, for two reasons.
First, the snow is powder, which is light to shovel and easy to plow (and a dream if you're a skier). One appreciates this after many winters spent scraping up the equivalent of wet cement, or skidding on ice as impenetrable as concrete.
Second, the snow remains crystalline, and that makes for breathtaking beauty when the sun -- and moon -- finally come out.
Two nights ago, the clouds parted to allow a half moon to bathe the white-robed landscape in silver gleam that thousands of snow bits caught and reflected like summer fireflies. The following morning, below cloudless blue, the sunrise caught more diamond points and lit the day with sparkle. When wind came up and lifted the powder, the very air glittered.
Conditions are right only a few days each winter, if at all. So it's hard to mind the season when it turns the world into a visual wonderland.
Carolyn Haley
Books at: http://carolynhaley.wordpress.com
Editing business at: www.documania.us
It also makes for the best of winter, for two reasons.
First, the snow is powder, which is light to shovel and easy to plow (and a dream if you're a skier). One appreciates this after many winters spent scraping up the equivalent of wet cement, or skidding on ice as impenetrable as concrete.
Second, the snow remains crystalline, and that makes for breathtaking beauty when the sun -- and moon -- finally come out.
Two nights ago, the clouds parted to allow a half moon to bathe the white-robed landscape in silver gleam that thousands of snow bits caught and reflected like summer fireflies. The following morning, below cloudless blue, the sunrise caught more diamond points and lit the day with sparkle. When wind came up and lifted the powder, the very air glittered.
Conditions are right only a few days each winter, if at all. So it's hard to mind the season when it turns the world into a visual wonderland.
Carolyn Haley
Books at: http://carolynhaley.wordpress.com
Editing business at: www.documania.us
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Here comes the sun
A new year is born -- both on the calendar and in the natural world. The dates fall about ten days apart but announce the same change.
For those of us in the northern hemisphere, and especially in the northerly climes, it's hard to think of birth in the middle of winter. But this is the point where gardens begin each year. As day length increases, plants and creatures begin to stir, or at least change their behavior in subtle ways. Under the ground, roots, corms, and bulbs are processing themselves for the upcoming growth season. Aboveground, birds change their songs -- for example, by New Year's Day I'd heard the chickadee's spring call for which it is named ("dee-deeee") -- and early breeders have started courtship. Meanwhile, the seed catalogues are rolling in, allowing humans to start planning this year's garden.
I am a daylight junkie, so I count the returning minutes of light after the solstice. It creeps in asymmetrically: for a week or two, daybreak comes later while sunset seems to stay the same. But then we start to see more light on both ends of the day, and its pace of return accelerates.
On the official winter solstice, we had 8 hours and 51 minutes of daylight. Since then, we've gained 10+ minutes. So few, yet already perceptible at dawn and dusk. This starts and ends each day with joy, and helps keep my chin up during the three months of cold, snow, and ice still to come.
Carolyn Haley
Books at: http://carolynhaley.wordpress.com
Editing business at: www.documania.us
For those of us in the northern hemisphere, and especially in the northerly climes, it's hard to think of birth in the middle of winter. But this is the point where gardens begin each year. As day length increases, plants and creatures begin to stir, or at least change their behavior in subtle ways. Under the ground, roots, corms, and bulbs are processing themselves for the upcoming growth season. Aboveground, birds change their songs -- for example, by New Year's Day I'd heard the chickadee's spring call for which it is named ("dee-deeee") -- and early breeders have started courtship. Meanwhile, the seed catalogues are rolling in, allowing humans to start planning this year's garden.
I am a daylight junkie, so I count the returning minutes of light after the solstice. It creeps in asymmetrically: for a week or two, daybreak comes later while sunset seems to stay the same. But then we start to see more light on both ends of the day, and its pace of return accelerates.
On the official winter solstice, we had 8 hours and 51 minutes of daylight. Since then, we've gained 10+ minutes. So few, yet already perceptible at dawn and dusk. This starts and ends each day with joy, and helps keep my chin up during the three months of cold, snow, and ice still to come.
Carolyn Haley
Books at: http://carolynhaley.wordpress.com
Editing business at: www.documania.us
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Silent night
Two aspects of living in the rural north give special poignancy to the winter holidays.
(1) Silence.
On the rare occasions when we have big snow -- just snow, no wind or sleet or any other variations of winter storm -- the world is embraced in a white velvet silence. It's a true silence, an utter silence; the only sounds come from your own clothes when you move. The surface of the world is smoothed into innocent beauty while life sleeps beneath. We get the silence for a few minutes or hours a year, maybe once every several years; two years ago, it came as a gift on the winter solstice.
(2) Darkness.
No streetlights. No neighbor's porch lights. Mostly, no headlights except your own, winding along the roads back from town. Then, suddenly, a star of Bethlehem floating in the blackness! Oh, it's somebody's holiday lights on a barn across the valley. Around a curve, a perfect Christmas tree illuminated in red, green, and white. Or perhaps a blue one. Then darkness. Around another bend, a deciduous tree's bare branches outlined in gold. Another mile of darkness, until the world leaps into blinding, blinking glow from an extravaganza of Santas and reindeers and trees and stars and snowmen and sleighs, all packed into somebody's tiny yard and so fully lit that you can almost hear the electric meter spinning. Then, back into darkness -- the opposite of snowfall, a rich, deep, inky blue that showcases every star in the heavens.
With this combination, it's hard to resist singing, "Silent night, holy night / All is calm, all is bright . . ."
Happy holidays!
Carolyn Haley
Books at: http://carolynhaley.wordpress.com
Editing business at: www.documania.us
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Mammals R Us
This time of year, I become acutely conscious of being a diurnal mammal. As winter descends, so do my energy and curiosity, so that all I want to do is eat large amounts of fatty foods and sleep. My cats do basically that, and I envy them the luxury. The rest of the year, they want to be outside all the time; now, they only bestir themselves for a brief change of scenery or a trip to the outdoor restroom. I content myself with looking out the windows and using indoor plumbing.
The happiest moment of every day is when I crawl beneath the electric blanket. The unhappiest moment of every day is when I wake up in the morning and it's still dark.
Some lucky critters get to bury themselves in the mud or a den, or migrate, or in other ways escape the season. The unlucky ones are out still there rooting desperately for food and shelter. I often wonder how our forebears endured life without houses and furnaces and electric blankets and supermarket-bought food stored in refrigerators, with electric lights and entertainment to beat back the darkness while wearing warm, comfy clothes and driving environmentally sealed cars. How brutal life must have been in earlier ages! How grateful I am to never know!
Just as often, I think about the advantage of this climate. Sure, winter is a drag, but it brings important pluses. In our neck of the woods, we don't have to worry about region-demolishing catastrophes such as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, floods, mudslides, and wildfires. I'll gladly take a few months of winter for all my life to avoid experiencing any one of those, even once! Likewise, having 3-4 months of deep freeze manages insect pests in a way that spares us from plagues in garden and body, as can happen in warmer regions.
So I'll resist that primeval urge to hibernate and hang on through another winter. Spring, like a rainbow after a storm, arrives at the end. Which is worth many months of cold and darkness.
The happiest moment of every day is when I crawl beneath the electric blanket. The unhappiest moment of every day is when I wake up in the morning and it's still dark.
Some lucky critters get to bury themselves in the mud or a den, or migrate, or in other ways escape the season. The unlucky ones are out still there rooting desperately for food and shelter. I often wonder how our forebears endured life without houses and furnaces and electric blankets and supermarket-bought food stored in refrigerators, with electric lights and entertainment to beat back the darkness while wearing warm, comfy clothes and driving environmentally sealed cars. How brutal life must have been in earlier ages! How grateful I am to never know!
Just as often, I think about the advantage of this climate. Sure, winter is a drag, but it brings important pluses. In our neck of the woods, we don't have to worry about region-demolishing catastrophes such as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, floods, mudslides, and wildfires. I'll gladly take a few months of winter for all my life to avoid experiencing any one of those, even once! Likewise, having 3-4 months of deep freeze manages insect pests in a way that spares us from plagues in garden and body, as can happen in warmer regions.
So I'll resist that primeval urge to hibernate and hang on through another winter. Spring, like a rainbow after a storm, arrives at the end. Which is worth many months of cold and darkness.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
The annual giving of thanks
Every year at this time, people across America ritually gather to give thanks for what they have. I try to do the same thing mentally every day, counting my blessings -- difficult to do when times are tough, but always worth the effort because it revives appreciation of life and all that is good therein.
My personal thanksgiving ritual occurs at a different time of year. I wrote about it in the introduction to my book, Open Your Heart with Gardens:
"Each year, it happens afresh:
"After months of brown and gray and white . . . cold and hard and dark . . . the day comes when I step outside and behold a tip of green protruding from the ground.
"The first daffodil!
"The sight of it drops me to my knees, mentally chanting, Thankyouthankyouthankyou! Then I leap up into The Happy Dance because there at my feet lies proof that the world has kept turning, the invisible forces of the universe have kept churning, and Mother Nature has again fulfilled her promise despite everything I doubted and feared.
"Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"
No daffodils now, but the promise of rebirth associated with them is what I most give thanks for as the year draws down and cold and darkness pervade.
Carolyn Haley
Books at: http://carolynhaley.wordpress.com
Editing business at: www.documania.us
My personal thanksgiving ritual occurs at a different time of year. I wrote about it in the introduction to my book, Open Your Heart with Gardens:
"Each year, it happens afresh:
"After months of brown and gray and white . . . cold and hard and dark . . . the day comes when I step outside and behold a tip of green protruding from the ground.
"The first daffodil!
"The sight of it drops me to my knees, mentally chanting, Thankyouthankyouthankyou! Then I leap up into The Happy Dance because there at my feet lies proof that the world has kept turning, the invisible forces of the universe have kept churning, and Mother Nature has again fulfilled her promise despite everything I doubted and feared.
"Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"
No daffodils now, but the promise of rebirth associated with them is what I most give thanks for as the year draws down and cold and darkness pervade.
Carolyn Haley
Books at: http://carolynhaley.wordpress.com
Editing business at: www.documania.us
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