The slide towards Spring

The period of Winter has always been a challenge for me. I am very attuned to sunlight, with my emotional lightness tied to its rays. During winter, less daylight and cloudy days can make me feel heavy, like time has become slowed and drawn out. I find myself longing for Spring and the return of more sunlight. As someone raised in New England and living in the northern climes of Vermont for the past 23 years I’ve struggled with embracing this monotone time of year. 

Animal prints in the snow

This year, rather than fight the disdain I have for the dark and cold months, I’ve been working to cultivate an acceptance. To lean into the retreat of the light. I’ve been learning more about the Wheel of the Year and Celtic Pagan traditions in an effort to nurture a more spiritual understanding of the seasons. Focusing on nature and the passage of time has actually allowed me to be more present in the moment. To slow down and remain in the now, rather than the past or future which I previously spent much of my focus on. It’s helped me understand that one of the greatest constants is the continuation of time. That no matter how much we may want to slow it down, speed it up, or hit pause, time will always pass. The sun will still rise and set. The moon will wax and wane. The cycle of life, death, and renewal will continue to turn. 

Tulips from Fern Ridge Farm help brighten the day. And yes, even flower farmers buy flowers.

Yesterday we passed through Imbolc, the third sabbat in the Wheel of the Year and a celebration of the tipping of winter towards spring. A recognition that, while hard to discern, nature is stirring around us. Even with a foot of snow on the ground and morning temps at -6 there are still signs to be seen. It’s in the birdsong I hear during morning chores, the melting of snow on the woodpiles, the warmth of the sun on windburned cheeks, the lengthening shadows in the afternoon, and the minute or two of daylight we gain each day. And with it, I too find myself stirring. Moving slowly from the pastimes that have kept me indoors - the hours spent in front of my computer organizing the upcoming farming season and the knitting, sewing, and reading that have occupied my time. This week I will plant the first seeds for our flower farm and with it, the slide towards spring has begun.

The goats enjoying some moments in the afternoon sun.

hold tight

I have been wanting to sit and write another entry for a few days now but every time I looked at my screen, it’s felt hard to come up with what to write. Life has been feeling heavy lately. In our little state it’s easy to feel protected and removed from what is going on around us but the news keeps getting harder and harder. It feels trivial to write about what I’ve knit, or baked, or observed outside but then I realize it’s my way of finding an anchor in these times. When life around me feels unbalanced and chaotic, I find the need to find something that stabilizes me. For me that’s crafting, and movement, and observing small moments in daily life that helps me feel grounded again. So that is what I can share with you. Hold tight friends.

Quilting is a new to me craft which I have really come to enjoy.

This week I finally finished this vest. My first time steeking (cutting into your knitting) and happy with the result.

I’m deep into sorting and cataloging seeds for the upcoming flower season. While it still feels long off, the first seeds will get sown in a few short weeks.

Blooming orchid in my sun room, flowers inside while it’s -5 outside.

getting back to creative

In my effort to move away from the online world and back into my own, one of the areas I’m focusing on is creativity. While I’ve always wanted to be a creative person I’ve never felt like I embodied that descriptive. I’ve been thinking about the why’s of this for a few weeks now and a lot stems from early messaging - to be creative I had to be good at the thing I was doing (drawing, singing, writing, etc). It was more about the quality of the end product than the act of learning, exploring, and simply creating. For most of my adult life, I’ve wanted to try new things but have feared not being good at it. This was unintentionally reinforced by the creatives I followed on social media, they made their art form look easy, and what I naturally failed to see was the years they spent learning and practicing.

This year I am working to let go of that prior mindset and I am embracing learning and trying new things. I’m leaning into my creative side and allowing myself to explore what it means for me to live a creative life. I’m working hard to unravel the idea of perfectionism in creative practice and am allowing myself to draw and doodle, write and ramble, and mostly, make mistakes.

One of the creative practices I have been wanting to learn for years now is sewing. I have always been wildly intimidated by the act of cutting fabric, of using a sewing machine, and of putting colors and fabrics together in complementary ways.

….What if I cut the fabric wrong, after all I’m no good at math. What if I sew something crookedly, after all straight edges are the goal. What if the colors I pick don’t go together, after all I don’t want people to think it’s ugly.

All of these thoughts had stopped me from actually trying so in Fall I finally decided to take a Learn to Sew class which quickly led to me purchasing a sewing machine. This in turn led to me to sign up for a Learn to Quilt class and I’m now halfway through learning how to assemble and sew three different styles of quilt squares. It has been such an amazing experience, letting go of the fear of failure and just embracing a learner’s mindset. And while it’s challenging I am enjoying all that I am learning and love creating things by hand.

Learning all about selvedge, width of fabric, and correct measurements

Getting more comfortable with this Bernina I found on Facebook Marketplace. It had been sitting unused in someone’s attic for years, its’ previous owner and avid quilter.

The first four completed squares. These Nine Piece squares will join Churn Dash and Flying Geese pieces we are still working on in class.

Besides exploring my creative side, I’ve been trying to get outside and enjoy the warmer days we’ve been having. Here are some things I have been noticing recently.

I followed these turkey tracks down to the waterfall. It was neat to see where they were stopping and nibbling on exposed seed heads.

The waterfall is one of my favorite locations on the farm. This year my goal is to take a photo of it every month so I can see how it changes throughout the seasons.

Some beautiful mosses and lichens on a tree near the falls.

I love the look of these empty milkweed seed pods. We saw so few Monarch butterflies here last year, I’m hoping their numbers recover a bit this year.

Is there anything you are hoping to learn more about this year? Perhaps a practice, skill, sport, or creative endeavor you’ve always wanted to try? I’d love to hear about it!

doing things a little differently this year

Though we’ve recently stepped from one year into another, I’ve never been one to really celebrate New Years. It’s like any other night for me and I’m in bed well before the clock strikes midnight. There was that one time, in my early 20s, where a few of my friends and I travelled to Key West and watched the Red Shoe Drop at midnight. We stood among thousands of other revelers on Duval St, cheering and expectant as we watched one year exit and another enter. That was a time in my life where it still felt like each year could bring the unexpected, like the path of life was still revealing itself. That path felt full of sharp turns, dead ends, and sometimes endless detours. Now, as someone in mid-life, the path forward feels less jarring. There are still bumps and dips, blind corners, and turn arounds, but generally each passing year feels a bit gentler than the last. Or maybe I’m just better prepared to welcome what’s to come.

As this year enters, I’m thinking more about what I want for myself in 2026. I don’t like the idea of making resolutions as they can feel too restrictive. Instead I’ve been thinking of what I would like to welcome more of into my life and where I want to focus my energies.

When social media and especially Instagram became a thing, I loved jumping on and seeing snapshots of people’s lives. Many of those I followed were friends who lived a distance away from me or classmates I hadn’t seen in years. They were artists whose work I had to seek out to enjoy. I could “catch up” with people’s lives and share glimpses of my own. It felt inviting, and genuine. Over the last few years, I have seen how consumed I can become by mindlessly sweeping my finger up the screen, rarely seeing the familiar and being influenced by an algorithm that thinks it knows me better than I know myself. It has felt mindless, disengaging, and joyless. While I love the posts from friends and family, these are what I now need to actively seek out, to sort through all the noise to find the ones I know.

I heard an interview recently about AI and social connectedness and the guest made a comment that really struck me. His statement was simple and direct, “reclaim what it means to be human”. As can sometimes happen with good timing, this simple sentence came when I was already thinking about ways I could feel more connected to the world around me and my space within it. I had also stumbled upon something called The Analog Life Project by an artist I had recently become familiar with (ironically through that blasted algorithm) and things simply felt as if they had fallen into place.

I’ve grown so tired of my relationship with devices (and particularly my smartphone) and recognize it does little to help me “reclaim what it is to be human”. So with that, I am making a conscious effort to return to creativity and the life in front of me. What this actually looks like I’m still pondering but it will mean a shift away from social media and a shift towards more tangible things. Through this blog, I plan to regularly share the things I’m doing to be more connected to the world around me. That may look different from post to post but it comes from a yearning for simpler things, of wanting to explore my creative side, of being more present in the everyday, of sharing more of the tangible and less of the fleeting, and the myriad of other things that will present themselves as I get back to my humanity.

I’d love to hear in the comments if any of this resonates with you and if so, I welcome you to join me either through following along with this blog (I plan to write an entry or two a month) or by finding your own ways to reclaim more of your human self.

-Katja