Sunflower Snow
January 23, 2012
JustLiving Farm
I walk by them every day. Each spring we plant more sunflowers than we will ever harvest. This isn’t so hard, a sunflower or two will produce all the seeds we’re going to eat for a year. We plant the rest for birds to partake during late spring and early winter. By now, they have figured out 
how to get the last seed out of the flower head. So, I walk by those stems and flower heads that were so green and yellow last summer, each day, without thinking much about them. Then the sun came out. With sunlight touching the snow buildup on each head the sunflowers presented a beauty that comes after life has slipped away.
© David B. Bell 2012
Chile Relleno Mornings
April 29, 2011
Early spring tastes like a mild Chile Relleno with a dollop on vanilla ice cream on top. The day is sure to be sunny, warm, and mild. Before 
warmth, though, you have to wade through the cold. Spring mornings give wonderful flavor; you feel the sharpness of the last vestiges of winter in a heavy jacket, raising memories of icicle days. As morning moves to spring afternoon, hawks fly warm updrafts, the jacket is shed, and mild warmth engages the senses pulling up seasonal memories of squash and tomatoes that are sure to come again. Sometimes, there is little difference between dessert and meal.
© David B. Bell 2011
The Art Of Easter Eggs
April 17, 2011
There is much to think of during this next week. For those of us who call ourselves Christian, the week holds a few additional reflections in store. Then for the youngest of us, who are not overly concerned with the theological implications of the week, there is but one thing to look forward to at the end of this week. Easter! Easter Eggs! Laughter! Family! And most importantly, the Easter Egg Hunt!
In honor of that hunt for multicolored eggs laid up against a fence post, nestled into a tuft of grass, or hanging out in the crook of flower branches, here is a way to keep those happy eggs healthy and colorful. Instead of going to the store this week and picking up a dye set, here are some other unique ways of coloring an egg for the Easter morning search.
Before boiling the eggs, search around with your children or grandchildren and gather the following list of items for coloring. Then, when boiling the eggs, place them (only one color item at a time) into the pot. When the eggs are hard-boiled, they have been colored as well! Of course, if you have come by the farm and picked up eggs, the hen colored some for you.
Enjoy the week ahead, honor your reflections, and have a wonderful egg hunt next Sunday!
A few natural food dyes:
Purple Grape Juice, Red Zinger Tea, Red Onion Skins, Red Wine, Canned Blueberries
Red Cabbage Leaves, Spinach Leaves, Orange/Lemon Peels, Carrot Tops, Ground Cumin
Ground Turmeric, Chamomile Tea, Green Tea, Coffee, Black Walnut Shells, Black Tea
Yellow Onion Skins, Chili Powder, Paprika, Beets, Cranberries or Juice, Raspberries
Canned Cherries, Pomegranate Juice
Mornings silence speaks Blessing
December 18, 2010
Quite nestles in during early morning hours before landscape awakens. The cold air and falling snow softens sound. This morning is one of those mornings when you feel alone and special walking to the barn in crisp hushed light. Even the sound of boots moving through snow is swallowed by the morning air. The animals have little notion of doing much with snow just outside the barn, so entering the barn is silent. In silence, snow blesses landscape.
© David B. Bell 2010
La Niña whispers Cold and Wet
December 6, 2010
We now have had a few days with the highs above freezing. The valley snow is melting while the north side of the ridge is grudgingly holding onto its snow. Fourteen days of snow this time of year makes one wonder if the la Niña predictions of a cold and wet winter are true.
Wearing a Hood on a Cold Morning
December 3, 2010
A slight change in weather brought fog to the farm and surrounding landscape. Little change in temperature though. Introducing fog to freezing air changes the face of the landscape. Not so much a new face, but more like your grandfather going a few days without shaving. Vegetation is as it was a few days ago but now ice particle upon ice particle have highlighted contours bringing out character unnoticed before. An ever so slight breeze keeps the windward face open while ice encases the remainder like a hood with strings tightened around the face. Ice accumulates and flows to the leeward, giving the one rooted in place the appearance of movement. Frigid, closed in, fog filled mornings brings about a certain gracefulness.
© David B. Bell 2010
Winter’s Com’in
November 22, 2010
With everyone talking about a clear change of weather patterns ahead, it seems like a change from fall to winter is sure to occur—even though the calendar says winter is on down the road a ways—it appeared time to get one or two last minute chores done. First, was to do one last cleaning of stalls so the animals could enter into the cold days of winter with clean stalls and clean bedding.
© David B. Bell 2010
Autumnal Memories of Northern Sun
October 20, 2010
moving being through ancient cosmos holding life, giving life,
nudging, stretching, pushing darkness, beginnings and endings not known
not knowing this walk
not knowing this journey
first light, imagined,
imagination speaks the never known
and known is unimaginable
light, light, light, light
ground of being held warmth,
light warmth fully engulfs being
explosion
rising up, growing up, running ahead, there is no time
moving, jostling, shouldering neighbor, reaching after light,
light, light light, light
pushing, reaching, grabbing, stretching
full life grasps for light
then
rest
opening to full light, engulfing warmth, presence, energy
birthing seeds
seeds of self birth
one, two, three, four
again and again
hundreds
then
rest
leaning towards cool southern light
resting head, then neck,
shoulders hunch towards beginning
warm afternoons are memories
of
yesterdays run toward light
cool evenings speak change
cool mornings reach deeply
holy unstructured thought
imagined unimaginable
rooted.
© David B. Bell 2010
Baler Maintenance on a Fall Day
October 18, 2010
Sometimes I have to give myself a push to get some fall work done. The baler needed maintenance to be ready to bale in the spring. However spring and the next baling seems a long time off, and good fall weather lends itself to an afternoon walk. Then again, spring walks are great too when you’re not cleaning a baler that should have been put away well, last fall
Warm Tomorrows by Way of Today’s Freezing
October 15, 2010
A light frost welcomed most of this week’s mornings. Then with this morning came word we could expect a hard freeze the next two mornings. Such word has a tendency to change the day; this one 
certainly changed the afternoon. We got an early morning start on a grant due today and a workshop for presentation next Saturday. The grant made it to the mailbox before today’s delivery, and an art-based workshop on community and hospitality was in place by noon. We then got to the important stuff.
We picked the remaining tomatoes, bell peppers, and jalapeño peppers. Next, we grabbed onions and garlic out of the cupboard, and lifted a few spices from the rack. Then we got to chopping, grinding, shaking and mixing. Once everything was in the pot and stirred up, off to the stove to heat to a boil, bottled, and hot water bath.
It might have been a push, but the rest of the day was perfect for canning. Sun and clear sky, and temperatures such that you could spend the afternoon in the sun and never break sweat standing next to the stove. The next couple of hours were spent filling jars, fixing lids, and dunking them into the bath. While waiting for the fifteen-minute bath to finish, we got in a little reading, a little talking, and a little landscape.
Fall may be cooling down, and winter might be coming, but salsa…along with a little goose down…will make those cold days ahead a little warmer!
© David B. Bell 2010
Balanced Autumnal Equinox
September 21, 2010
I cannot help but look out the window the day before fall begins and the day before Autumnal Equinox and think how different and how wonderful the seasons. The summer solstice does not feel that long ago when the longest day lit the horizon long before I would sit, think, and write. This morning the western sky is dark, with stars, as the eastern sky begins to lighten with a thought of color.
Tomorrow, a day of equal night and day, when the earth’s axis leans neither toward nor away from the sun, calls creation to celebrate something so natural yet so hard to maintain. Equality, a righteous term recognized by so many as an ideal to struggle for, that at times are obtained for a moment, and yet so hard to maintain.
In a time when welding power is so important, the moment of equinox is a reminder that holding power is fleeting at best. Today the light reigns, but the day after tomorrow the night grasps the longest part of the day. In the case of day and night, light and dark, equinox calls for a consideration that there is more to equality than how we might hear the word reign. Equinox calls for balance in equality. Longer nights than days is not dark holding power over light, but rather, a reminder there is wholeness to life with longer mornings and earlier evenings. Our busy, non-agricultural, non-hunting, non-gathering, non-fishing world, keeps too many of us from living the balanced lives day and night call us to enjoy.
The long days of summer call us to work long days and that work is natural and good. We miss though when the long days continue into the winter. As days shorten there is something bodily speaking to us to shorten our workday as well. A little more sleep in the morning, a little more time for conversation, games, and popcorn with our friends and family at night. Balance. A dream, maybe, for when we all go to work the day after tomorrow no one is going to say, “sleep a little more and come in a minute later” of “leave a minute earlier and spend that time with your family.” Instead the busyness of the world will demand the same of us tomorrow as it did yesterday. And yet it does not mean it has to be that way for our children’s children. Today we can speak to a deeper equality that pushes our world towards balance that pays attention to the fullness of creation, the give and take of night and day, the wonderfulness of hard physical work and the gloriousness of gentle rest. If we do, maybe tomorrow will hold more balance, more balance, and maybe a little more popcorn for our children.
© David B. Bell 2010
