"The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web." ~Pablo Picasso ...
Life
Mountain Woman Haircut
Sometimes, you just have to do something wild. Whether it comes from an inner sense of artistic expression, or just because it's something you've always wanted to do, from time to time it's good to go with the idea. It makes for a good story. Although this one is slightly old news, for those folks that know me, I finally got the photographs from a friend and couldn't help but share. ...
Imbolc Light Garden
As the wheel of the year turns once again, we mark the shift in the seasons by celebrating Imbolc, an ancient holiday honoring the first stirrings of the seeds beneath the rich, dark earth and the slow but sure return of longer days. This year, my children and I had a very simple celebration with a delicious dinner of shepherd's pie, earthy carob cake with cocoa nib "seeds", and our ...
Hibernation Coffee Cake
One of my favorite breakfast treats when I was growing up was my mother's coffee cake. Who knows whether it's the crumbly texture, the rich buttery goodness or the little crunchy bits of streusel with nuts on top that make it such a wonderful morning treat, but it is wonderful indeed. I woke up on a slushy winter morning this week with a load of firewood to stack, and decided the ...
First Snow
We finally woke up to some white winter mornings this week that were so silent and still you could hear a crow's call clear as a bell from across the fields. As soon as the sun would peek up over the hills it all began to sparkle like thousands of little diamonds. This is one of my favorite parts of Winter that we only seem to get a little taste of around here. It's important to appreciate it ...
Thoreau on Winter
"We sleep, and at length awake to the still reality of a winter morning. The snow lies warm as cotton or down upon the window-sill; the broadened sash and frosted panes admit a dim and private light, which enhances the snug cheer within. The stillness of the morning is impressive... From the eaves and fences hang stalactites of snow, and in the yard stand stalagmites covering ...
Buche de Noel
For our Winter Solstice celebration this year, we went all out and made a Buche de Noel (Yule log cake) complete with homemade marzipan elves, fig "acorns", meringue mushrooms, pistachio marzipan leaves and chocolate bark. I had been dreaming of making this cake for years, so it was quite the exciting endeavor. The meringue mushrooms were decorated with homemade white and dark chocolate gills, ...
Chocolate, Chocolate Everywhere: Making truffles from scratch
Handmade gift-giving is an important tradition I strive to always carry out. My do-it-yourself nature aside, I just plain like making things for people. However, running a small handcrafting business this time of year really motivates me to look for new ideas that have nothing to do with wool or acorn caps to create something to show appreciation to the people in my life. This year, I decided ...
On a Cold and Frosty Morning
There have been some cold, white mornings this past week. With snow being such a rare occurrence in these parts, hard frosts are responsible for many of our memorable Winter landscapes. I found some amazing ice crystal formations I couldn't resist capturing some photos of before they melted away. Frost covered spider's lace. Jack Frost's barbed wire. A frosty fence post. A magical, ...
Winter on the Farm
We've been waking up to some cold, frosty mornings around here, and I decided all of Queen Winter's marvelous artwork need not go un-noticed. I also figured it was high time I wrote a post about the permaculture farm where I currently reside. I've been here for about three months, and between farm work, parenting, a job coordinating volunteers at the kids' school, and orders for my ...