Solstice celebration and Christmas preparations

Decorating cookies.

 Candlemaking, beeswax tapers.

 Compiling various homemade gifts, soap, candles, lotion, lip balm and felted purses and other creations.

I have never worked much with wool until this winter. The easiest quickest things to make ended up being purses. I wet felted sheets during the day and after the kids went to bed, I would needle felt, sew the sides and add a clasp or button. 

We celebrated solstice with a bonfire, marshmallows,  a few fireworks, glow rings and night sledding.

Happy late Solstice, Merry Christmas and best wishes for your Holiday Season!

Our Winter Solstice

Today is winter solstice. Summer solstice is a momentous occasion up here, as we have almost twenty-four hours of daylight. Winter solstice seems to squeak by with hardly a mention. However, I find that of all days, this is one we should be celebrating. The return of the sun. Is sun not life itself? Here, the lack of sun is so noticeable. Today the sun rose around 10:50 and set around 2:30, giving us three hours and forty minutes of sun. I should have written down the exact time when I heard it a half a dozen times on the radio today.

Almost everyone is low on energy, sleeping more, feeling lazy and so on. I have one recommendation for those feeling blue on these dark winter days: GET OUTSIDE! I don't care how cold it is.  Bundle up and go for a walk in the middle of the day. Stand and look at the sun. Feel the warmth of the sun...if you can. If I didn't have outside chores to get me outside during the daylight hours, I'd probably spend my whole day inside, in the kitchen, and I would go crazy. I have my outdoor chores to thank for my sanity this time of year.

Chickens getting treats, milk, kombucha mother and king crab shells, mmm.

frosty duck door

All of these pictures were taken today. These outdoor shots were around one p.m. Sun shining on the south facing hills.

A view from the snow blanketed garden.

Winter Bucks

Beet and carrot pulp leftover from juicing- the goats love it.

Winter Does; healthy thick fur balls.

Hot cross buns, mmm.

And, better, iced cross buns

Gift making, homemade lotions.

Noah is stringing cranberries and popcorn onto thread, to be hung outside. I don't know if the chickadees will eat them or not. But it is a nice gesture. We did hang birch bark covered in bacon grease and sunflower seeds for the chickadees, and that, they loved. By the way, anyone see the eclipse last night? It was pretty cool. It was a cold night to be standing around outside. But I happened to catch it about half way on my way out to close the animals in, and then continued to look up now and then over the space of a half hour. Not something you see every night.

Happy Solstice!