glad to be home

    hi there, i am writing to you from the hill and i can not tell you how glad i am to be home. The fog is thick and the air is warm and again the snow begins to melt. I have been away both for work and personal reasons and at every quiet  moment i craved the hill, thought about the animals and tea by the fire. I spent some time in Maine while we shot and styled many stories, met incredible people who were inspired to start something and in turn have left me genuinely happy knowing that good people are doing great things.

It has been a bit of an emotional roller coaster  sad and happy news seem to intertwine but the ability to remain hopeful and at the same time and the continual belief that the path i am on is the right one keeps me moving forward. I learned quite a bit these past few days about myself and others and i do feel at this moment overwhelmed by all of it. i have one day to try to process it all and take away what is useful and let go of the things that are no longer.

Dear friends, it  is a sunny fog out there so thick that you would think that the clouds have fallen unto the pastures. i feel as if i can fall asleep standing up and i have never said that in my life- so i am treasuring the next twenty four hours before i am in the thick of it again. there will be a few walks in the forest and across the fields, a book left by a friend to read and a loaf of bread baked by another on the hill and left for me to slice into and i do hope a few good hours of sleep.

hiver

i have just returned from the forest, it is the loveliest of winter days. sun shines beautifully and the warmth that cometh from it is spring like. the house is very toasty and i walk barefooted and my clothing is light and delicate. a large glass of orange juice with grated ginger is on the table and je grignotte on carrots as a banana, chocolate coconut cake bakes in the oven, the house smells lovely and rich.

I want to play chess with the pieces that were made just for the hill, i need someone to play with me but i will wait. music is playing and i feel so at peace and calm. i have worked on many projects this week, consumed by the computer i do not do well staring at a screen for so long, it takes moisture from my skin and oxygen for my lungs but in the big picture i hardly have to do it at all. thank goodness for the hill and the most beautiful hiver i can remember, for long winter walks, healthy animals and a quieting soul.


some winter inspired songs i have been listening too: here,  here, here, here, here, here truth is loving this band  and this one

winter in the woods and snow

it was as i hoped it to be, the weekend that is. lots of time outdoors, a film and another one this evening anna karinina. I can not wait to be outdoors again tomorrow, there is something that brings me happiness in the snow, it is so crisp and beautiful and as i walk under large canopies of ever greens and oak trees my spirit becomes unburdened by things that can weight me down.

I think is time to dive into books, it has been too long since i read a last page of any book, i wonder what it will be and where it will take me and whom i will meet in it's pages.  i also plan on purging many things in the house, things that clutter up drawers and closets and end up making me feel phobic. I also want to commit myself to a few things i put on my list when i first moved to the hill, one of those things is meditation, true meditation. on my last visit too santa fe, new mexico i visited a tibetan home where i was gifted the most beautiful piece of music perfect for reflection. I played  it for a month straight every morning and evening as k and hiked through the colorado mountains a few years back.

i hope you have a good week, would love to hear what you are listening and reading.

january and a winters walk.

 I have just returned from snowshoeing in the woods behind the house. the snow is so beautiful and the sun warm. there is so many animals tracks in the woods, deer, coyote, bunny and birds. it so quiet when you walk on snow through the forest, even a stillness and calm that i desperately was seeking yesterday one of the biggest days of my life,  i often romanticize how things should go, in fact i can romanticize most anything like i often do about mucking stalls.

I am sitting by the fire now, a wool blanket covers my legs and a warm cup of tea sits next to my knitting yarn. the horses are loving todays weather, i think all of us are since yesterday the temperature fell to minus nine.

this weekend will include a trip to the city, a film, farmers market, more snowshoeing, knitting and cooking. I am looking forward to it, since i am at the gate of so much work to be done, shoots to plan, workshops to announce, houseguest to welcome, airline tickets to purchase, house to paint and so on. may you all have a good weekend, i just love january so very much.

winter's day and wishes.

i am sitting at the kitchen table, sun shines through enough to warm me where i sit. the fire is burning, the smell of pine is all about the house. On the stove top tea kettle begins it's boil and potatoes with garlic from the garden are in the cast iron skillet a craving on this christmas eve morning.

I am filled, i think my cup runneth over with good people, dear ones,  the life changing kind, that has not happened before. I am reserved in away, a solitary creature, i have walls so high, i started building them at the age of five. Yet this morning i can not help but to reflect on the kindness and meaningful exchanges that have taken place this year. I want to name those people here, i do, i want to share with everyone my gratitude for true friendships yet i also know that i must pen my thoughts and seal them in the envelop and send them to be carried my post men so that they can be read when the time is right.  I also feel lucky for all the exchanges here on the blog, all the friendships that grew and the kind insights that have been given, thank you dear readers.

the sun is bright and it is as a winter day should be. Wishing you happiness and if you find yourself solitary yet wanting to not be, there is place for you here always.

This song i am still finding traces of myself in it as i did here.

with kindness,

nadia.

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.

nature of me

i am good at it, good at staying quiet when my insides scream. i am good at letting things roll off me even though they somehow end up inside of me. I am good at not pretending to pretend. i am good and believing it is my fault when it is not. i am bad at speaking when my insides are screaming, i am bad as i  keep things in when i should let them roll off of me. i am bad for taking the blame when you are in the wrong.

somehow things work themselves out, somehow there is fog and rain, sun and snow in one day. sometimes i am four seasons, i grow and shed, change and bloom all in on hour that is the nature of me and i am finally realizing some of it i can not change and some of it i no longer feel the need to change. i am i, like wool is wool.

I like this song for in it i recognize the quietness behind the screams, the static between two feelings.

evergreen

this morning the alarm went off upstairs as i was already walking about downstairs. the kettle whistled as the sun began to pierce through the sky, fog and warm air crept up the hill. there would be a morning ride through the green mountains, a ritual for the soul that seeks to see more.  wet thick snow
quickly melting, fog so solid that slowing down is a must.  I looked out at all this,  more than everything else it was the evergreens that held my attention. i love them most of all against winter's backdrop,  as i say this the smell that comes from camping underneath them on hot summer day is equally pleasant to remember.

 Yesterday was one of those days that you stay in your wool socks and comfy clothes, that you listen to only things that make you feel safe and talk about only kind things, or maybe hardly talk at all. yesterday tears fell randomly all through out the day but more like burst of sun showers than ones that stem from sad things, i am happy, i am dizzy, i am learning and i am so grateful for your kind comments and emails.

....as i made it through the beautiful mountain landscape that i call home, i sat in a cafe and sipped  a beautiful prepared mocha and played the best chess game ever. then i drove back towards the hill as the sky, the delicate sun and fog made the whole journey feel as if i was looking through rose coloured glasses,  the truth is i often do even on those dark days.

hush

there is part of me that wants to hush everything, put a finger to my lips and say shhhh and yet there is part of me that wants to say everything empty all my thoughts, fears and hopes. i started to think is there anyone one who has that person in their life that they say everything too. I have some great people in my life but not one those, although i have no doubt they would except that role but it is i who has trouble.

Tomorrow will be epic, i can not say more even if i tried for even for myself as the very thought of it comes to surface i quiet it down. we all have things that change the path or confirm the path we are on, i wonder how many of those we get in out life time. i wrote those very words to friend via text yesterday, can i just say how much i hate texting i feel like it is some sort of demotion in friendship in a way,  anyhow as i wrote that down i thought surely i have had many path changing events but more i thought about it more i realized some of what i thought was huge disappeared shadowed by greater things.

I found this and something about it lifted my spirits, "stars in still water" by Jonsi, i know how to see those, i do not know how it came to be, perhaps my  mother teaching me to see beauty in everything.

*sophie and grooming created such a ethereal scene.

the wind that blows the snow and a weekend away

 the snow did come and it brought some incredible winds, in fact they came from a direction that i have not experienced on the hill. so much wind that the house is having trouble warming up. when it began to fall sophie and i went outside, she loves the snow as much as i.  I also found the young chickens walking in the snow, how the wind does not take them something i often think about, especially when i see little barn swallows sitting on tiny twigs in a blizzard. will i be going snow shoeing, i am afraid not for the snow that has fallen has only accumulated at snow drifts yet snow is still falling so i will  hope for the possibility.

I will be heading to montreal tomorrow for the weekend and i will come back with elle and dylan who will be spending their winter break here on the hill. how i am excited for  few days in montreal and having my niece and nephew hang out with me on the hill.

* oh and i have nine roosters, which is not good thing so i need to find homes for some, this is not easy to say at all but for the well being of all the flock it is for the best. only to a loving (no kill) home. they are so sweet, they truly are.

* sometimes, i feel like i am a "little bit country" with my words & photographs, the city trip is coming at a perfect time.