Happy New Year, 2016

January 1, 2016

Contributed by HarryNicolas Graybear

Most Animals in the northern hemisphere know the Sun and Earth have started another cycle of life at the Solstice. The Animals in the southern hemisphere will restart their cycle in 6 months. Humans have picked a different marker to celebrate renewal.

To all our readers, human and otherwise, Happy New Year

In our woods, the First Breath of Spring bushes (Lonicera fragrantissima) and the Flowering Quince (Chaenomeles speciosa) are in full bloom offering food to any brave bees willing to venture out to forage as the local temperatures finally begin to drop after the warm Christmas rains.

The kids have all departed for their own homes in far-off places. They left me a much-appreciated gift of a denim apron to help keep shavings and sawdust out of my pockets. The oldest son helped me (actually, he did all the cutting!) take down a neighbor’s dead maple (sugar, I think (Acer saccarum) which I will turn into bowls and other useful things (probably including heat).

Unfortunately, the apron, during its first use, did not protect my hand from a flying, lathe-ejected piece of bark.  OUCH!

A couple of dried Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) flowers bound to the wound under a bandage, quickly stopped the bleeding and accelerated the healing such that while it still feels traumatized, it is nearly healed after only three days.

For Christmas, I gave Deb a crudely carved spatula I freed from a twisted piece of cherry firewood.  Look how beautiful the grain is!

Cherry Spatula

She also received this little bowl I discovered hiding in an old black locust fence post.

Locust tricorner

I also removed the ‘waste’ from a small piece of soft mahogany scrap from Deb’s Dad’s old workshop.

Mahogany square

Nature creates such amazing and wonderful masterpieces with trees and other plants.

I hope you’ll look around and find some miracles!

Harry

Organized under Harry, Winter.

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