Snow, eggs, river and mountains

When I woke up two mornings ago, something felt very, very different. And very, very quiet. It's always quiet out here in the boonies, but the quality of the lack of sound had an eerie, muffled feel.

We have to get the kids up at 5:45 am so they can make it to the school bus at 6:25 am, and thus it was still dark, but when I let the dogs outside to pee first thing, I saw right away what the cause for the stillness was: snow. 

Yes, I know it's pretty. But you guys? I don't like it – not one bit. I intended to start onion and leek seeds on Valentine's Day, but the weather rained snowed on my parade.  Hmpf.

It's a good thing we got a huge head start on our fire wood scene.

Our chickens don't like this #$% either.  We have them in the chicken tractor so we can move them around the lawn and pasture, but when it snows, they have to hang out in one place.

Before the snow hit, they pecked fresh grass and bugs every day.  Can you see what a huge difference this makes by the looks of their eggs?  Store bought organic eggs with their paler yolk compared to our homegrown bright orange ones: there's no comparison.

I feed my chickens the scoby from my kombucha making.  They gobbled the whole thing up.  I bet they are the healthiest chickens in the Skagit Valley!

I put together a beautiful online course on how to raise chickens organically and naturally, if you are interested.  It also includes detailed video instructions on how to make a chicken tractor like ours. I filmed Steve how he made one, so it's super easy to follow along.

Before all this snow descended on us, we had to deal with record rainfall.  You can really understand why we Pacific Northwesteners are addicted to our coffee.

There was a three-day window in all the shitty weather when the sun came out.  As soon as the first sun ray showed, up, I grabbed my oldest son and told him I needed a mother-and-son date.

He was fair game, since he truly is a nice kid.  Plus, the choices were: either go on a hike with Mom, or build a mountain bike trail with his brother and Dad. I won. Yay!

I love this guy.  As far as 15-year-olds go, he's golden.  He's still more or less okay spending time with his old mother, funny as heck, and more thoughtful than most adults.

So we hiked up the dirt road behind our house, and got to this spot:

A day after this, we got together with friends to bushwhack to a beautiful, remote spot by the river.  At least it felt remote, until we found a rustic outhouse in the middle of the woods.  Magic, man!

We spread out on the sand, brought out pounds of snacks, settled down with knitting, and the teenagers promptly fell asleep.

On the way to the river, we found the first nettles! Nettles! That night I went home, and wouldn't you know? I picked enough nettles by the compost pile to make nettle pesto!

In closing today, let me show three more scenes.

1) We bottled our homemade elderberry wine, and we even designed our own labels.

2) Steve and I found a heart rock on one of our walks.

3) And up until all this snow fell, I kept up my daily practice of walking barefoot.  One day, I even walked on the frozen ground, and it felt totally fine.

What's happening in your neck of the woods?  Do you still have snow?  Have you started seeds yet?  Any baby goats?

Winter wonderland eye candy

Yesterday, I stomped down our driveway, lined by snow-covered Cedar and Hemlock trees, bending their boughs with the weight of snow.

I walked by the goat pasture, where we keep this year's babies - not babies any more, but friendly, fat goats, fur fluffed up to keep them warm, greeting me with loud maaahs to entice me to throw them a flake of hay.

My destination was my neighbor's house, where we gathered for singing practice with another friend.  The three of us have been singing a capella for seven years.

Walking up the hill to meet them, looking at all the beauty around me, anticipating joining voices with my friends, I felt a little weepy with gratitude for my life.  (Steve recorded us singing by the river last year, if you want to hear us sing.)

Of course, our (human) kids LOVE the snow.  In fact, they are building a snow fort as I write this, because it snowed some more since yesterday.  Little Eva just brought our dog Raka inside, since Raka apparently is intent on destroying their fort.

So she's curling up by the woodstove now, keeping me company.  I'm writing this by the twinkling lights on the tree, listening to Christmas music.  We put up the tree two nights ago.

Yes, it's Christmassy around here.

Before all the snow hit, we prepared for it by harvesting kale from the garden and moving the greenhouse over the rest of the kale and collard bed to protect it, so we'll hopefully have greens all winter long.

Before the North-Easter blew in, two days of cold weather with sunshine made for beautiful walks in the neighborhood.  Let me show off some of the eye candy around here.

I hope you are able to find peace right now as well.  I know things are crazy out there, with lots of anxiety and polarity everywhere.

Let me leave you with images of what keeps me sane.

My oldest son making waffles for the whole family:

My younger son homeschooling at the kitchen table, framed with all the paper snowflakes he has been cutting:

Visiting dear friends with a new puppy:

Watching my kids play in the snow.  I keep telling them: "You could be sitting in school right now", and they roll their eyes at me.

My beloved family:

A bobcat, a new puppy, and a happy new year to you!

I don't know what to be more excited about, so I don't know which order to tell this in. Maybe the most dramatic one first.
Last week, a bobcat killed six of the chickens we share with our neighbors. The bobcat stayed in the coop, hissing and spitting at us as we watched it through a window covered with chicken wire. We kept watching, the bobcat didn't run away, and after a while it started munching and crunching on one of the chicken carcasses. We kept observing it while it dined on its chicken dinner special, growling at us and staring us down every now and then. I didn't know if we should be scared because this wild animal was not scared of us. Did it have rabies or was it just really hungry?

Although I'm mad at the creature for killing our chickens, I am grateful to have crossed paths with such a beautiful creature.  We are also a tiny little bit relieved, because our old-ish chickens had slowed down in the egg laying department, and we kept buying expensive, organic grain for them in exchange for one measly egg a day.  And then we had to buy expensive organic eggs from the store on top of that.  We had been wondering about what to do with these chickens.

Well, the bobcat took care of it.  The lone surviving chicken was captured by friends, and it will hopefully live out its days in their pasture, without being eaten by ravens or eagles or raccoons.

The other exciting news (this one the bubbling-over-with-joy kind) is that we will get a puppy in February.  We met the litter of a Chesapeake-Labrador dog and fell in love with them all, and since we can't have them all decided to adopt one of her daughters.  The puppies are only three weeks old, so we have to wait til the middle of February to take her home.  I think this will give us enough time to get used to the high-impact, high-energy idea of a puppy.  If this one turns out as well as my beloved dead dog Pluto, we are in for heaven.  If not, then... well, there will be a lot of chewed shoes, I imagine.

More excitement this week: snow.  Lots of it.  While our family and friends in the midwest and the East coast are basking in spring-like weather, we are sledding, building snow forts, drying heaps of wet clothes in front of the wood stove, piling lots of wood into said stove, drinking tons of hot chocolate, and sweating in saunas and rolling in the snow afterwards.

With all this snowy weather, Steve is making progress improving our home.  He added on a second bathroom (a good thing with five people in the house), and best of all, a loft for me.  For ME!  No kids allowed!  Since it's high up, it has an amazing view.  I love it and start my day there most mornings, to meditate, count my blessings, and set intentions...  Can you see why I love it so much?

Also, our friend painted Eva's bedroom.  Pink.  Yup, it's officially a girl's room now.

Saunas:  Steve wanted to build a cordwood sauna for a long time, but then kept having children and other projects to finish.  Our neighbors' son got interested in the sauna idea and borrowed some books from Steve.  And this is what happened: Steve gave him the posts, cordwood and woodstove he had squirreled away over the years, and our neighbors' son built the sauna.  It is gorgeous.  We get to use it whenever we want.

Our little family of five took a sauna on Christmas Eve, and we sat and sweated, pounded on drums, and sang Christmas carols in the sauna.  I got choked up when I looked at their beet red, glistening faces, listening to their voices, feeling my heart might burst - not from the heat, but from love.  I feel so lucky to have these beings in my life.

I will leave you with images from the ocean on the boys-only-fishing-trip to the Olympic Peninsula a couple of weeks ago.

Have a happy new year!!!