Okay – so it’s not really a ‘farm.’ But that’s what my family has always called it. It’s land that my dad and my uncle bought after they both returned from WWII.

All across North America, sometime during the two and a half weeks surrounding December 25, people count birds! It’s the Christmas Bird Count – and it’s coming soon to your area, if it hasn’t happened all ready.

People may find God in a cathedral, temple, synagogue, mosque or any number of religious buildings. But to me, the original cathedral, temple, etc., etc., is outside. There, I am most awed by God’s creation. It is God’s great gift.

Somewhere in a galaxy far, far away…
Aviva lay in bed and waited for light to seap around the drapes that covered the windows. The knobby joints of her hands and feet ached.

12:30 a.m. Thursday, December 22. The winter solstice  is the time of the year when the sun is at its lowest… Read more Special Post: Winter Solstice and Halcyon Days

Bark is the protective lining of the living tree. This ‘skin’ bears scars and wrinkles that testify to the trials of its life. Wounds scab over, leaving a lump, slash, or sometimes a knob. The bark of each tree is like a unique fingerprint, exclusive to that tree species only.
Today’s activity is tree fingerprints!

“The muted tones of winter allow for the discovery of nature that is concealed by the busyness of other seasons.”

That first time on the ski lift, I posed my body just right so that the chair would scoop me up instead of knock me flat. I’d practiced the pose in my mind a thousand times, and now – it was time.
The seat caught me and swung me high until I was flying up the side of the mountain over the trees. A silent, white wonderland lay below, evergreens heavy with snow.

Today’s activity, for children 3-9 years old (and young-at-heart adults), is designed to get us thinking about how animals survive the cold winter months, and also to think about what kind of intelligence it must take to retrieve the food that they have hidden.

Whatever season I am in, and whatever place I am in, I can find serenity and peace in nature. But sometimes I have to work at it.