Hello, Rural Sprout readers, This will be my last newsletter for 2022, as the Rural Sprout team will take a well-earned
winter break until the New Year. In this season of giving, I’ve been trying to think of what I wanted to leave you with to close out the year. As I write this, I’m sitting at my sweetie’s dining room table, looking out on a snowy Christmas card. An eastern hemlock draped in snow sits at the edge of the woods, surrounded by snowy bushes on the crest of the lawn. The bird feeder is full, and there’s a block of homemade suet cake hung by the
window. Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal and several tufted titmice are enjoying both. Inside the house, famous choirs sing traditional Christmas carols on the hi-fi. And before I know it, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude. My monitor has gone blurry with the sting of happy tears in my eyes. For a brief moment, all is right in my world. I know when it comes to perfection, that’s
all we get – brief moments. These moments are made all the sweeter for knowing they will pass as quickly as we pause to notice them. And isn’t it wonderful that such tiny blips on the timeline of our existence are enough to sustain us? Perhaps the true wonder is reaching a point in your life when you are wise enough to have that realization. I know soon enough, life will intrude again
with squabbling children, unexpected expenses and ill-timed crises in a world the media insists is in turmoil, because that is life. And this moment will pass into the ether. But that’s the beauty of perfect moments; when they conspire to happen, they end up being the simplest scenarios, rarely involving things, but rather people or places. Our mind has a way of noticing these moments for what they are, and stamping them indelibly in our
consciousness to recall at will. Funny. I’m always going on about how much I love winter; perhaps it’s because so many of my perfect moments are
snow-covered. An evening when the snow outside my window was the color of gold from the sodium-filled street lights, as I sat sewing Christmas gifts at my kitchen table. A night with a full moon and a world full of sparkling silver snow as I enjoyed the peace of an empty
house all to myself. Snow falling in fat flakes to cover my boys and me in the park after dark. A sunny morning falling flat on my can in the snowy driveway while my daughter, son-in-law and I laughed until we couldn’t breathe. Walking barefoot on a snowy path in February so I could feel the earth beneath my feet. A walk with my father in a snowy copse filled with balsam firs and the red flash of cardinal wings. Dang it, my monitor has gone all blurry again. And there it is, my Christmas wish for all of you, dear readers.
I hope the season conspires to give you a perfect moment where the world slows briefly, and you find your heart so full that your vision goes blurry. I hope the next time we meet, you have another perfect memory stamped on your heart and mind to recall from time to time.
(And I hope it’s snow-covered.) We can’t thank you enough, dear readers, for reading Rural Sprout. And I want to personally thank you for joining me each Sunday in this cozy little corner of the internet. Words can’t begin to express my gratitude to all of you. I know our head homesteader, James, and the other writers here at Rural Sprout feel the same. We’ll see you in the new year.
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Don't feel bad, I made every single one.
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Put your garden to bed, except for the kale, which will probably keep growing long after humans have gone extinct.
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Did you miss a newsletter or want to go back and read a few for inspiration - Click this link. Don't forget to check out our Facebook page for daily updates. That's all for this week, Rural Sprout Readers.
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