Happy winter

The baker is busy in the days before Christmas. I stepped outside this morning to breathe in the darkness, while it still reigned. I hope to spend Christmas Eve afternoon sipping whiskey on the abandoned railroad tracks, toasting our new friend: the beaver who is constructing a dam in the valley where we often walk. There is a steep bank where we can sit and watch him tending his floats of branches. There are new little ruts - I call them beaver slides - going down the bank, into the water. I like to imagine him yanking his treetops over the edge, and then wheeee!!! In he goes after them. Plop.

Happy solstice to you, friends.

Animals

These Woodland Creatures have been making a mess of my desk (chewing up pencils, leaving dirty footprints about, etc.)! So I gathered them all up, threw them into the scanner, and slammed the lid shut. Ha.

But really... a friend asked me to draw some animals for her daughter's bedroom art gallery. Here's who I have so far.

The weather has gone a bit wintry, and consequently, I've spent a good deal of time at my desk drawing this week. (Also there was the heffalump trap. For anyone who is waiting with bated breath: we did not catch a heffalump. They are notoriously difficult to catch. For anyone who does not know what one is, below is a clue.)

Today we made a heffalump trap

Frosty morning

The boys are off for a weekend-long recording session. Laika and I are on our own. We intend to Get A Lot Done, and eat whatever we want.

So far, things are going well! Laika found her own yesterday's-barf, conveniently frozen in the backyard, and ate it. And I slipped on the ice, but did not fall and break my ass, and whenever that happens, I feel like it's my lucky day.

Sniffing the wild air

My dog, Laika, does what my mom has always called "sniffing the wild air." She closes her eyes, tips her head up, and uses her nostrils like a pair of small bellows, welcoming in the scents. She looks peaceful, happy and relaxed.
 
I drink my coffee on the back porch in the morning, so I can feel the weather, and so I can feel like I belong. Some mornings it is hard to stay out there, with the warm protection of the kitchen behind me. But I like ritual, or I am a creature of habit, or whatever... I need to smell the wind: is it blowing in ocean salt or hyacinth? just sewer gas and diesel fume?

This morning was a treat: southern pine, on a raft of peach-and-lilac sunrise.

Thanksgiving

A forgotten-about Musque de Provence pumpkin vine produced this huge black beauty in our garden. After the rest of the greenery had slumped with summer past, there it was tucked in the strawberry patch underneath an espaliered cherry tree... From what I read, it is immature - these pumpkins turn a lovely warm terracotta color when they're ripe - but it roasted up nicely anyway, and a small portion became our pumpkin pie.

We had a warm kitchen full of family, friends, and dogs yesterday. We ate a turkey from Clodhopper Farm, barded with Clodhopper bacon. Mockingbird bread, Ardith Mae cheese, Hillside butter, farmers market kale and brussels sprouts, our own potatoes, and on and on...

I've been stewing in my own toxic broth of cynicism even more than usual lately. But in the last week I've been reminded: I have so many people I love... and such a bounty of beautiful, comforting, nourishing food... and the time and freedom to walk out into the woods to clear my mind whenever I need to...

I've got a whole lot of be thankful for. And I am.