days go by, and the year turns over

it’s been a few weeks since my last post. we’re still doing old-fashioned mondays, i still have a lot of crafty stuff to do. i still have laundry days and wash my things by hand (my clothes now, too, instead of just my cloth wipes), and we’ve had more snow since early december. here are a few photos from the past weeks.

orange and blue sunset

this beautiful horizon was  a nice surprise one evening as i went out back to bring my laundry in before dark. i love the silhoette of trees in the wintertime.

gloves from a cut up old sweater, fixed

i made these fingerless gloves in the winter of 2007 with two then-interns at acorn. we cut up a hole-ridden sweater from commie clothes and used dental floss to make gloves. i knew better than to attempt fingers with cut-up knitting. and now, two years later, the edges were getting awful ragged – and i finally had enough basic knitting skills to just pick up some of the hanging loops to keep it from unraveling further. other places required more creative measures.

fiver climbing ladder at heartwood

i woke up one morning to find fiver ascending a ladder just outside my window. the heartwood re-siding project was going ahead full steam every day until the snowstorm came (and then christmas). that ladder is still outside my window.

laundry day - hand washing clothes

another laundry day. it feels good that it’s becoming a simple routine, and still isn’t something that i resent or feel stubborn about. sometimes i put it off for a few days, but it’s always a pleasure once i make it outside and sit on my bucket in the sunshine for a simple hour of rewarding work. now that i’m washing my clothes as well, i have that delicious fresh air scent all the time. you can’t find that scent anywhere but line-hung clothes.

ashleigh wrapping crystals

another old-fashioned monday found ashleigh wrapping a few crystals to turn into necklaces. i got one of them as a trade for some henna body art that i did on her weeks before. it’s wrapped in copper, and i haven’t taken it off yet.

after the snow - heartwood wreath

we got nearly two feet of snow out here, and so for the first day or two everything was especially scenic, a veritable winter wonderland. of course now we’re in the waning days of dirty slush and scattered patches of stubborn snow. i made this wreath for heartwood after pruning an evergreen that always tickles my head when i walk on the path to the farmhouse. the trimmings made a fine wreath (for a beginner, anyway), and made heartwood feel a bit more festive.

dandelion tincture

i just started this dandelion tincture yesterday, after going on a weed walk the day before and finding some hearty dandelion south of the greenhouse. it’ll serve as a good winter tonic six weeks from now. i’ve been really excited to be undertaking more herbal projects, and have also finished decanting the herb-infused oils, and then used some of them to make lemon-balm lip balm and lavendar burn salve.

i hope you’re having a good new year wherever you are.