Winter Happenings...

Hello dearest friends,

We've been traveling! We took our little Winnebago Itasca Spirit, Toyota out for a journey south to warmer lands...

and found tremendous beauty in northern Georgia...

and incredible concentrations of life in southern GA.

Our three cats traveled with us and found refuge in the sunshine...

our laps...

and the stillness of the camper. (Moving, not so much.)

The cold found us in southern GA and we had to make our way home anyway so we headed into deeper cold in northern Alabama to Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. Tens of thousands of Sandhill Cranes, one Whooping Crane, thousands of waterfowl and overwintering songbirds made our quick stop not enough. We cannot wait to go back!

Now, we delight in the frost and ice of February in Ohio...

and more than cherish any sunshine that illumines our little patch called home.

The winter treasures we behold are more subtle than the spring and summer abundance we share, but with an observational eye, the beauty of warm days finds us in the healthy and strong cocoon of a polyphemus or luna moth overwintering on the native American Hazelnut we planted many moons ago. The winds have long since dropped this cocoon into the leaf litter below the plants reminding us daily why we don't clean up leaves. The diverse and abundant world of life in the leaf litter zone is more beautiful than we ever dreamed; truly the fodder for wonder.

We celebrated the joy of a 53 year old birthday boy swinging in the snow and smiling all the while.

And of course, we stratified the phenomenal native American Persimmon seeds we collected with grand hopes of great germination and strong root growth, which we will offer for sale next fall during their dormant period.

Two books we are currently devouring that we highly recommend if you want to help save the world or just add great enjoyment to your life:

Native Plant Agriculture Vol.1 by Indigenous Landscapes
Nature's Best Hope by Doug Tallamy

And finally, we are loving our dearest, oldest coon cat - Bounder. She is aging and life is shifting for her and we remember to hold our loves as tight as we can. Life isn't going any slower and for that incredible gift of clarity, we discern what is important and what isn't really, at all. Our mantra regarding much of life now is Good Enough and then we spend that "extra" time living and loving and embracing, gratefully and with reciprocity and joy.