waiting for snow

i am waiting, that is what i have been doing. minutes, hours and days slip through slowly, yet a feeling of things moving quickly are also being felt. I am waiting for snow to fall, there has been none in fact since i have moved to vermont and this being my second winter there has been no snow, the planet is changing it's layers putting on new clothing to adapt to the rising heat and i don't like it.

There is no sign of holiday's here in the house and i keep telling myself to go out there and forage and bring back some pine, but in a time when i  hope for new life- taking any kind of  life seems unkind and i can not seem to do it, in fact a huge grey birch tree fell inches from the coop and house and as i cut into it yesterday i was filled with sorrow, the hypocrisy i feel writing this down for i burn wood to heat my house daily, life a delicate entanglement of wants versus needs. There is a huge branch of evergreen that fell because of it, perhaps i will simply string that along in the house or on the barn doors. you must think i have no spirit, i have asked that myself to myself and the timing of the holidays is mixing in with something much more pressing in my life and i am consumed by it, yet i stay quiet and still not to fully grasp what is coming. as i write this i know i must go out there and get that piece of green, i must fill the house with good spirit for in turn it will fill me.

I did go for a beautiful walk this morning, hence the photographs above. warm rain and fog kept me company, i explored the pond, writers shack the walnut grove, apple orchard and then entered the forest. i love it here, in fact this just might be (is) my favorite place on earth and the happiness i feel here i have never felt elsewhere.

gentillesse

if i had not gotten stung twice, if the check had arrived in the mail, if the library books were not due, if  the wood had not come that morning i would have not found her there, falling from the hill crossing my path. if i decided to go left instead of right, if i had taken that call as i was walking out the door, if i had not forgotten the netflix movies and turned back, i would have not seen her cross the street into the forest. if i had the thick skin that people wish i had, if i did not listen to my inner voice, stare into her eyes, fall in love with her within minutes, i would have left her there in the shelter that said they would be happy to take her and were ready too. if i had left her i would have gotten a call the other day to tell me she was put down with fourteen other tiny kittens who where infected as parvo swept the tiny kitten room. if i did not leave with her in my arms she would no longer be. i only wish i could have done something more...

she was put in my path and i in hers. her name is gentillesse (kindness) and she has found a forever home, here on the hill with us.

in my life i have always had this thread and if i was to pull that tread it would take me back to the age of five ihave always been able to see my path through this thread.

thank you all dear readers, your hearts are SO BIG, for those who said you would be happy to take her i could not let her go but i know there is beautiful loving souls waiting for you at shelter near you.

* she is helping sophie heal-which is amazing. she is teaching sophie how to be gentle.

* pictures from the orchard- the apples were hot pink i am not sure what makes them that color and if it is a variety.  all i know is that among thousands of apples trees that were picked these were left. i so wish my camera was in better shape, so please forgive the blurr. i find photographing hot pinks, fushias and magenta can distort a picture. ( they do not allow those colors on television and now i know why:)! as far as tasting one, well i am afraid i can not- they spray the orchard with chemicals( a lot)

soon i will be home dear autumn

hope you are well.  i am still away and this is a scheduled post, i am sure i will be wondering what it looks like on the hill, if  the animals are okay, if Tolstoy will forgive me for being gone so long and if splash misses our lullaby. i dream of a fence such as this one for them. dear sophie i am coming home very soon, have you been good to grace, bullet and stella. have you kept the foxes, hawks away from our feather family. k, hon, love, did you enjoy your week on the hill. i will be home soon. i will have a house full of guest this whole month to celebrate autumn on the hill. 

hope you guys are well.

* pictures taken two days before i left for france.

au revoir

 my dear readers as i tried to make my way into town on the dirt road,  my heart was captured by the beauty of an autumn morning as it found itself engulfed by fog.  as i walked along the road, i tried to notice every leaf and it's colour, every drop of dew and living thing , it all took my breath away. i was captivated by a web jewelled with drops of rain, how i wish i could gift such a thing to my mother, a necklace worthy of the loveliest of heroines. 

i will carry this magical morning to remind me of where i will return too as i make my way to France.  i am leaving in a few days to assist aran and stephanie in the loveliest of places Dordogne, i think it is going to be magical. then i will do what i have craved for so long, return to the streets of paris, where my feet will walk along old cobblestones, step into cafes, sit on park benches and  remember what once was, while making moments i will never forget. i will visit with family members i have never met in person and embrace all the goodness that comes from such an encounter.

 i will miss les animaux i am constantly telling myself that they will be okay(please be okay) because they are in good care. know that i will take you with me for i have never once saw something lovely that i did not whisper "dear readers can you see, i will show you". i will be away for a little while when i return there will be a big threshold to cross, but for now i will just say thank you for being so kind to me your comments i  treasure

au revoir et a bientot! (see you soon)

* the fog is so beautiful and magical here on the hill

Further inside of me ( post revisited)

i wanted to share a post i wrote a few years ago

i was very fortunate to have been able to visit the theater this week and too listen to stravinsky' "rite of spring" performed by heddy maalem dance troupe. not only was this beautiful to watch but powerful to listen too a few days earlier i also listened to an orchestra performance, that moved me so much that i started shaking. i have been this way since i was a little girl. in the last few years i feel something so deep inside of me that it often it feels like i have no ability to breathe and my heart

hurts. as i was listening to this performance come to an end and had reached the state i just mentioned i heard a gentle whisper in my ear asking" what where you thinking about" i could not answer the questions..but it stayed with me all night. on a drive back one afternoon i heard another beautiful piece of music that brought tears quickly to my eyes and i began to feel the heart ache...then i had remembered the question that was asked a few nights before....

the answer to myself

although i will be celebrating my eleventh year of marriage and fifteen years of togetherness, i think that in those moments that the music is playing i yearn for a moment of innocence and newness where my name is nadia and nothing else. please do not get me wrong if my husband would suddenly not be in my life i would be on the floor begging for all of it back every single morsel, but when i hear the piano, the violin, the cello.. i think of the the fairy tale that plays in my head, the quivering lips and the bright eyes, the time before the wrinkles, before the bitter heart ache, before the numbness, before anger and disappointment.

in those few moments i am crying for the person i once was, the person i rushed through. i have always been a dreamer my biggest love is russian literature-sometimes i feel it has ruined me and other times grateful for the life it leads in it's pages...i have never been one to worry about age but what saddens me is how far i have gotten away from myself. In those moments i see myself as i once was and wish i would have taken notice. in those minutes i dream for moments that did not happen and the ones that have but never completed, i dream of rain in paris and hands shaking.....i dream of horses in mongolia and people faces..i dream of new languages..i think of the times i said no when i should have said yes..in those moments i dream for everything to be different while it remains the same....

photos out side my window

signs of autumn

this morning i groomed and rode splash he is so good to me kind and gentle. then a quick shower a bowl of apple compote with almonds and off i was for a stroll. i love the subtle changes that take place right before the leaves begin to turn.

corn

this morning frost covered the ground and everything else it could find. sun floats bright in a almost cloudless sky.we would harvest the corn today, as much as we would need to carry us over the winter, they would serve as treats for the horses and clarabelle. as i was picking the corn, more like pulling i started to think of all those who really had to do this. all that had to hurry while spending sixteen hours in the field, hands raw, cut and sundried for maybe a meal or a roof. things have changed now at-least here on this side of the world big machinery has taken over, yet i can't help to think of the signs posted in cafeteria walls of companies, with all the agricultural laws and the tiniest minimum wages written all over them, at times even embarrassed, ashamed to-read them. how could hard working people who feed us get so little.

it is afternoon now, corn put away as fields are cut down. the sun shines beautiful the warmth of it's rays has reached us . we are hobby farmers today at best. the storm windows will get placed, clothes will shift from light to heavy. we hope for the arrival of one of our new additions, wondering about the others yet to come. for now we will go back outside and let the sun know we are grateful for it's arrival.