Grateful for Change

November 28 , 2013 /

Grateful for Change

Living where there are four distinct seasons is a reminder of preparing for and welcoming change, mostly a change in the weather. The accompanying  visual and visceral experiences range from the position of sunrise and sunset to variations in temperatures and colors and mother nature at her best.  On this Thanksgiving morning the sun bathed the clouds in a deep coral hue and then the color shifted slowly to a silvery, feathered array of scattered altostratus.
We have had some snow, more at the higher elevations where the ski areas are opening today as we hover ever closer to winter solstice in a little over three weeks.  The trees are bare and appear dormant as they overwinter in a resting phase with essential life processes continuing at a minimal rate. Full-on root growth resumes in spring, shortly after soils become free of frost, usually sometime before bud break.
Here in the high desert our first frost comes as early as October 15 and the last one as late as May 15.  While that makes for a short growing season, some of my farmer neighbors have found numerous ways to extend that on both ends of the cycle and thus we all benefit from their creative, dedicated energy and commitment.  If you have a local CSA, consider joining if you have not this past year.
As we plan to move from The River House after almost 9 years here in the midst of such natural beauty replete with various animals in our miniature peaceable kingdom, it’s an opportunity for a transition from one place to another, from one lifestyle to another with less maintenance and worldly cares.  This offers a measure of freedom and independence for us to work less and travel more. This change has been in the works for about a year and is now coming to fruition.
For all the time and pleasures we have enjoyed here with ourselves, our animals, our families and friends and good neighbors, we are enormously grateful.  We have been richly blessed by their presence, their genuine caring and generous sharing and we appreciate so many good times together.  We are grateful to now be able to choose to make this change while we have the time, the resources and good health to do so. There will be more changes, and as we all know well, not all may be the most desirable, but for those that are, thanks be to the gods of change!

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