so!

it is finally, i am told, wintertime. the light is right, the cold breathes through us and snow, at long last, is falling thickly in the middle of the day. we have lived in a kind of drought-like panic, willing the sky to cloud over, for the streets to be impassible and all the stocks we laid in of cocoa, stewing onions and woolen socks to be put to good use. entire weeks for visitors, ticked and circled in red ink on calendars months ago have been scratched out. the hotels are vacant, the streets are wide with empty parking spaces and you can walk into almost any restaurant without a wait. it is an eerie phenomenon indeed. but (and this can be attributed to a Northern Ute tribe member who was called in to dance for money and snow to fall from the sky onto the grateful Powdr Corp. execs...blech) snow fell! whether it was the paid Native in fringe or the late snow coming as it reliably does the season, though quite late, is upon us.

in honor of the Winter we did Wintertime things. drank cocoa spiked with chili pepper, tangelo zest and cinnamon, baked off loaves of wild yeast bread,  and sat by the fire, idling away the morning while the view eclipsed with storms and then opened again.

thoughts about the future are inevitable in moments like this. likely because we are humbled easily by anything en masse- snowflakes, natural disasters, flowers coming into bloom. but it also seems poignant as the natural world is resting. quiet and pure whiteness abound. all things germinating in clandestine sleep, tiny brave green rinds blushing beneath frozen loam. all springs plans seem to hatch when winter is felt most fully. seed catalogs seem most appealing, the smell of growing things a richer novelty. nothing cement yet, but firm intention is certainly coming up all around.