Winter Solstice ~ by Lexa Fisher

 

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

December 21st marks the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. Here in the Pacific Northwet, a December evening starts about 3pm...or 10am if it's raining heavily. It is also observed as the beginning of winter.

The squirrels I feed are making a mine field of my yard as they bury nuts and corn for the cold days ahead. Yes, most of my back yard looks like this--holes everywhere, filled with peanuts or corn. I see the squirrels running under the fence to my neighbor's yard and wonder if we'll both see a corn crop next spring.

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

Though the days will now grow longer, my preparations for winter include gathering candles for those seasonal power outages. We had so many power outages last year that I wished I could have deducted my candle costs from the electric bill.

 

 

Photo by Tijana Drndarski on Unsplash

With winter's approach, cozy wool sweaters and socks also come out of storage, perfect for bundling up as we read books and sip hot cocoa in front of a fireplace. Some of my favorite reading during the cold winter days is poring over plant and seed catalogs, planning my spring garden. 

 

Photo by Hanna Balan on Unsplash

 
This is also the season to pull out those recipes for warming meals of soups and stews. Fresh herbs from the garden (yes, even in winter) add extra nutrition and flavor. While they simmer on the stove these meals heat the kitchen before they warm our tummies. And what goes better with homemade soup than fresh herbed rolls from the oven? 

 

Likely winter will seem so, so cold and long, but two months from now it will be time to fertilize plants before they send out new growth and till up the soil for all those seeds I've acquired. Maybe I'll even get a few unplanned stalks of corn, courtesy of my well-fed backyard squirrels.

Photo by Rodrigo Rodriguez on Unsplash