Inspired by Mike's 2008 summary photos, and by Mark's notion that we should take New Year's Day as a holiday, I set out Thursday afternoon with our camera in hand.  It's harder to find color in the winter, but the stark shapes and lines can make up for the lack of color.  First I got caught up in the shadows cast by the bed springs we'd dug out of the garden.  Spiralling circles --- I almost got lost right there.

But I really wanted to visit my favorite sycamore grove.  Down in the floodplain, several large sycamores grow in a ten foot in diameter ring.  They clearly mark the borders of an ancient sycamore's root mass, and I can almost see the parent sycamore in my mind's eye.  I lay down between them and looked up, just in time to catch a photo of a sycamore turned human.

Holidays evade me sometimes.  Thanksgiving and the winter solstice I can wrap my mind around.  I'm so used to the family elements of Christmas that I follow through without giving it much thought.  But the other holidays that Mark named off when I dubiously asked him which ones he's used to celebrating --- New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day --- are blurs in my mind.  What do they mean?  How do you celebrate a holiday you don't understand?

I'm afraid I bickered with Mark before agreeing to take the day off.  Now I'm glad he perservered --- so I cooked him up a pound of bacon and a double recipe of the fluffiest white pancakes in my cookbook as an apology.  You're right, Mark!  No matter what the holiday means, it's worth it to spend time in the moment.

Yesterday I received my last paycheck from my nonprofit.  From here on out, it's freelance or bust!

While musing over the above, and cooking our Christmas turkey bones into stock, I dug up this carrot in the garden.  Its split bottom, with the small side twining around and seeming to strangle the big side, reminded me of my life in the nonprofit world over the past year.  I'll leave the obvious symbolism to the reader to tease apart.

My resolution for 2009 is not to be that carrot.  Saving the world, keeping us fiscally afloat, visiting with friends and family, nurturing my own household with tasty treats, feeding my soul through art and long hot baths, feeding my body with wood chopping and digging in the garden --- I hope to keep all of the sides of my life in closer balance.  Meanwhile, that carrot went into our bellies.

It was mostly cloudy today as can be seen in this picture of today's sunset out by the mailbox.

There's only a couple of days left in 2008 and 2009 is already starting to look like a fine year for the Wetknee farm. I guess these cloudy days bring out my introspective side a little more than usual.

I'm always interested in low budget building methods that break away from the traditional square lodge approach.

If these concrete culverts were buried into a south facing hillside you might get a perfect year round temperature at zero cost?

This could also work as a root cellar and maybe even a small green house if enough sky lights could be added. The circular design would make it easy to roll into position when you get ready to bury it.

The picture is the field behind my mom's backyard in Ohio. This time last year it was showing signs of soil compaction as I walked up and down its trail. Thanks to some corn stalk mulching I've noticed a decrease in the mud and standing water.

I'm not sure how often one needs to mulch corn stalks, but I have always enjoyed gazing out at these fields.

The wind is the price you have to pay for such a nice view. On a day like this you might want to consider electric socks to keep the wind chill as far from your toes as possible.

Somewhere or other, I read that division of labor was one of the roots of human civilization.  When people began to specialize in certain chores required to keep the whole community alive, everyone got a little free time to paint cliff paintings or write in their blog.

I was a bit slower to come to terms with division of labor, but lately I'm startled to find myself falling into the typical gender roles in our relationship.  The honest truth is that while I can haul 50 pound bags of feed to the barn without much ado, when it comes to hefting the spud bar to dig deep holes I'll hack for hours at what Mark could do in minutes.  On the other hand, I sincerely enjoy the puzzle involved in keeping us nutrionally fed on a budget, planning the progression of roast turkey breast to pesto chicken salad sandwiches to fajitas.

While Mark was playing baseball with all the neighborhood kids, I was inhaling books in self-imposed isolation.  I was the kid who hated group projects and did most of the work for the whole group because I didn't trust anyone else to work up to my standards.  So it's no surprise that the teamwork in our relationship is primarily Mark's doing.  Some days I'm stunned by how smoothly our team runs --- Mark drives, I navigate, Mark saws wood, I load the golf cart and drive it home, Mark keeps the fire going all night, I sleep.  Oh, wait...

Here, before us, we have a pretty self-sufficient farm family, whose only wants outside what they produce are some metal utensils, glass, fine cloth, perhaps, refined sugar, flour and meal, coffee or tea. Up the hollow is a wired old coot digging some coal and iron out of the earth and, with his sons, building a furnace to smelt iron. Down the road is a little country store and water powered grist mill, where farmers can get their grains milled for a fourth of the product. You get the picture. It's a community in early nineteenth century Virginia or Ohio or New York. Many dozens of places. Little or no money used or needed. No great expectations.

How do we get from there to here in two hundred years?  Read more....

I have a confession to make.  On Black Friday --- in the polar opposite of voluntary simplicity --- I not only bought something, but I bought something big.

When I quit working for my nonprofit, I had to return the fancy equipment I'd been using --- a zippy laptop, a stunning camera, a swell GPS.  I thought I'd miss the camera the most and had told myself I could splurge and buy one of my own, but luckily before I splurged I went back to my old laptop and realized that it was like returning to using a screwdriver after you've been building houses with a power drill.  I had gotten used to being able to manipulate 2.4 MB photos with ease or format big fancy documents.  Back on my old computer, not only was the broken hinge not as repairable as I'd initially thought, but those large manipulations would take 15 minutes of painful effort, the mouse lagging behind where I pointed it as the computer worked all out and still barely managed.

And so I told myself "if you can find a zippy laptop for under $500 you can get it", thinking all the while that the budget was too low and there was no way I'd find something zippy enough to tempt me so cheap.  But then on Black Friday I went online and found a 15% off sale at Lenovo along with free shipping --- and got a zippy laptop for under $500.

When the computer arrived yesterday, the creek was way up and the footbridge icy and lopsided, but I crawled across (literally), pushing the laptop box in front of me --- my version of risking life and limb for shopping.  Next week, Joey will set it up with Linux (at which point I will begin to love it --- right now it's running windows and I can't seem to force myself to touch it.)  And that is my confession --- we all fall short of the glory.  But at least I didn't fall in the creek!

I never seem to have enough time these days, how do I create more of it?

Zemke, Pittsburgh PA.

Good news Zemke, we will all be getting an extra full second added to the official clock starting just before midnight on New Years Eve of this year.

According to NASA, time is slowing down, and 900 million years ago a day would only last 18 hours.

I would say the best way to create more time would be to delete most of your distractions and try to live more in the moment.

The Bush administration has won another victory in its war on the Environment. The EPA approved a last minute rule change on Tuesday which will rewrite a regulation enacted in 1983 that bars the dumping of huge waste piles within 100 feet of any stream or creek.

The new rule change is opposed by both Kentucky and Tennessee governors as well as other area legislators.

The regions most affected are some of the poorest in the nation and in our back yard. I can't help but to wonder what other midnight regulations the Bush team has in store for us?