Winter Solstice: The Return of The Light of the World

As the days shorten, the hues of sunlight on the landscape shift and deepen, reflecting the coming of the longest night of the year. It is difficult to take joy in growing things without a companion appreciation for the rhythms and cycles of the world around us. As the light shifts and nights lengthen, and as I mark the southern spot where the setting sun sinks behind the distant Rockies, my mind and body inevitably respond. And, although our fast-paced, modern culture is loathe to allow it, still we tend to turn more inward, more focused on hearth and home and to consider our worth and worthiness as the sunlight wanes.

I will love the light

for it shows me the way.

Yet I will endure the darkness

for it shows me the stars.

--Og Mandino

Ancient agrarian cultures, worldwide, prepared for the inevitable arrival of the shortest day by observing and responding to the rhythms and cycles of the earth around them, since they relied on the land to provide for them. They planted in Spring, cultivated and irrigated through Summer and harvested and preserved in Fall. But in Winter, cultures who lived closer to the land than the one I live in today, slowed down. They slept more. They consumed the concentrated, highly nutritious food they had so carefully preserved and, undoubtedly, lovingly and deliciously prepared. They engaged in storytelling and social gatherings. Perhaps they contemplated the stars on a clear, cold night, and felt connected to the skies. 

Source: Original Unknown

The ancient rhythms of the earth have insinuated themselves into the rhythms of the human heart. The earth is not outside us; it is within: The clay from where the tree of the body grows.

--John O’Donohue

Then, as now, the darkest day of the year somehow seemed time to celebrate. A time to revel in past traditions, appreciate new understanding of the rhythms of the world around us, and to show gratitude for another cycle of a season successfully completed, even if the harvest was meager. It is the time of year when cultures worldwide, throughout the ages, have celebrated the return of the Light of the World.

This phrase has been interpreted many different ways throughout many different societies and traditions. Often, varying interpretations have been divisive. Yet, few moments in the collective history of humanity is as universal and uniting as the arrival of the promise of waking from the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year.

All things are possible once the Sun returns!

The Light has returned and a new cycle begins. We celebrate this time of year in many different ways, with myriad beliefs and traditions, but nearly all cultures and religions celebrate it in their own way. 

At times

our own light goes out

and is rekindled by a spark from another person.

Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude

of those who have lighted the flame within us.

--Albert Schweitzer 
  

As one cycle ends and a new one begins, we appreciate and celebrate the fruits of our labors and give thanks to the those who give us strength and help us grow.

For that, I thank you, my reader. For without you, I am not complete. 

May you enjoy many blessings of the season. 

First Frost

The first frost of the season is imminent.

Sweet Bounty
Photo: Annie Lopez

Living in an area with a short growing season can be somewhat heartbreaking as the brief season draws to a close. The plants in the garden, lovingly nourished since before germination, are only just beginning to get tall and bushy; plentiful pink and purple, white and yellow blossoms peer from beneath healthy greenery while simultaneously offering full, ripe, well-formed fruit. It is an abundant time in a plant's life cycle,  celebrated with feasts and offerings during Autumn and Octoberfest festivals worldwide. 

Yet, when my plants are destined to freeze with the coming rain and snow, I can't help but feel a bit of sadness for the end of our lovely, long sunny days. Predictions of more than a foot of snow overnight in some parts of Colorado herald  a new Season. 

The plants in the garden have roots that are set deep and secure, embedded in soil that proffers the nutrients of the family midden. The roots may make it through this freeze, but when the plant's life giving leaves freeze overnight, the roots will soon follow. 

“Then summer fades and passes and October comes. We’ll smell smoke then,

and feel and enexpected sharpness,

a thrill of nervousness,

swift elation,

a sense of sadness and departure.” 

                  
                      --Thomas Wolfe

Despite the somewhat melancholy hue of the first frost of the season, we truly are thrilled that the plants we have nurtured from seedlings have provided us with some delightful treasures, and I spent some time making last-minute harvests before the cold inevitably sets in. 

“I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air.”

                            --Nathaniel Hawthorne 

I especially love harvesting our multi-hued corn and unwrapping it to discover what myriad and beautiful colors it has produced. This is our second generation crop from this strain, and it will provide seed for next year's planting as well as its slightly sweet, nutty flavor as an addition to soups and stews this winter.

Smoke Signals
Photo: Annie Lopez

Corn is an excellent grain crop that preserves very well, as long as it is not too sweet and filled with sugar. Modern Monsanto genetically modified monocultures, which are distilled into starches,  syrups and fuel, have given corn, overall, a bad name these days. While the modern corn plant has certainly been shamelessly engineered and exploited, it has its historical roots deep in the heart of Native American culture. Corn is an amazing giant grass plant  that is native to the North Americas and has long been grown for its nutritious and delicious, easy to harvest, easy to store grain.

When we do choose to grow a sweet corn variety,  or when we pick up seasonal sweet corn from a local farmer's market, we like to soak the ears of grain in water, wrapped in their own fragrant husk, and then grill or broil them while still in their saturated leaves. The grass leaves surrounding the ear are very good at soaking up water, so this method steams the corn while roasting the husk, leaving behind a delicious, grassy infusion as well as the smoky flavor of the open flame. Turn the corn frequently to turn the outside husk a golden brown. A simple dressing of Irish butter (made from grass fed cows--a must for butter lovers!), salt and pepper is all that is needed to finish the perfect ear of locally grown, sweet corn-on-the-cob. And the still intact husk serves as a handle to keep your hands butter free! 

The corn we are currently growing is from a Native American strain called Smoke Signals. We received our original seed stock from The Seed Saver's Exchange, a non-profit organization dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom seeds. We have preserved the hardiest seeds to ensure a crop that thrives at our altitude in our semi-arid climate. Corn is a sun-loving plant and does well on the sun-drenched, Colorado high prairie.

Red Flame Seedless
Photo: Annie Lopez

Grapes and huckleberries were particularly plentiful this year. Our unusually wet summer provided our grapes with the deep draughts of water they need to form full, fragrant, juicy fruit. Netting the grapes was key to preserving the ripening fruit and preventing flocks of birds from feasting on our harvest. Our grape harvest was so successful, in fact, that we are considering growing wine grapes as well as table grapes next year. Always up for a new adventure!

Garden Huckleberries
Photo: Annie Lopez

Fortunately, the birds weren't particularly interested in our plentiful harvest of garden huckleberries. Huckleberries are a large, firm, juicy, purple berry that can only be  found in the wild or in a home garden, since they are not commercially grown. Another North American native, huckleberries have been an important food source for many Native American cultures. Its deep purple color signals the presence of important phytonutrients and antioxidants, both essential for proper nutrition and for fighting off illness and disease.

For the most part, the berry is largely flavorless, but they blend very well with other berries and make lovely pies and cobblers and delicious, deep purple jellies and jams. In Colorado mountain towns, it is not uncommon to find huckleberry candies, confections and taffies in gift shops and specialty stores. The compact plants are prolific and produce continually from the time they are practically seedlings up until the first frost of the season. The firm fruits freeze very well and most recipes call for either fresh or frozen berries. It is a hearty, easy plant to grow, and after perusing huckleberry pie recipes, we are poised to add this versatile berry to our winter pie repertoire.

“In seed time learn,

in harvest teach,

in winter enjoy.”

                                       

                                   --William Blake 

To Bee or Not To Bee?

Bees have an enviably intimate relationship with flowers. As much as I love my peonies, daisies, hollyhocks and lavender,  lavish attention on them, water them, weed them, feed them and protect them from the hail, and absolutely glory in their fragrance and lushness when they reward me by showing their dazzling blossoms, I simply cannot manage to crawl between their luxuriant, fragrant petals and delicate, soft  pink or purple folds, or to roll my entire body to revel in their fragrant and nutritious pollen, and unfurl my probing tongue to taste the deepest, sweetest fluid on earth--the sweet nectar emitted from the depth of a flower blossom, first hand. Up close and personal, so to speak.

Bee on Blue Flower
Commons.wikimedia.org

As my husband and I have considered becoming apiarists, and have learned more and more about these spectacular and exceedingly necessary creatures, I find myself consistently considering the world from the unique perspective of Apis mellifera, commonly known as the Western Honeybee.

One of the most basic and necessary considerations to make when providing for bees as their keepers is proper food and nutrition for them to produce enough honey to sustain themselves through the winter and, hopefully, even have a bit left over for their loving and devoted keepers. It seems nearly universal for us to want to provide the best nutrition possible for the animals in our care. I have seen people who are hungry and in need forgo proper nutrition for themselves, and even their children, in order to buy the best possible kibble for their loyal and loving dog. While I certainly can't place bees in the 'loyal and loving' category, they have undoubtedly fallen to the 'within our care' category.

The closer we examine the honeybee,

the more we realize the workings of a beehive

encompass territories

beyond our comprehension.

--Leo Tolstoy

The need for backyard beekeepers has never been greater as the feral honeybee population in North America has recently become virtually non-existent. Today's honeybees have met with a barrage of barriers to completing their seemingly simple mission of collecting food for themselves and their young. Pollinators are some of the few beings on Earth that provide for themselves and their offspring without harming the organism that provides their sustenance. They are, in fact, not only beneficial to their food source, but absolutely necessary to the production of most of the fruits and vegetables that we, as humans, consume. Bees carry the pollen of the thousands of flowers they visit on their gathering excursions, fertilizing as they go, and providing necessary, life sustaining, genetic diversity. 

Covered in Pollen
Source: Rogue

Modern agricultural practices, which favor monocultures, have created a "green desert" of crops that cover mile after mile of fertile land that once supported a vast variety of wildflowers, the primary food source for feral honeybees. These crops, while necessary for human consumption, do not provide adequate food for bees, and many pesticides and fungicides, once thought to be 'safe' for bees, have recently been discovered to have an array of devastating side effects for bees and other necessary pollinators as well as their offspring. These factors, along with the infection of a parasitic Varroa mite, are causing a disturbing phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder, a condition where all of the adults in a hive will fly off and abandon brood (their young) and honey, and most unusual of all, their queen, never to return.

Colony Collapse Disorder

A recent study of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)  has revealed that bees are consuming a veritable buffet of pesticides and fungicides in the pollen that they collect from wild and domestic plants alike. GMO "Pesticide Ready" plants like corn crops transfer their neurotoxic chemicals via the pollen that bees gather to feed to their larvae. Even if the pesticides do not kill bees directly, the chemicals weaken the colony, which functions as a collective and is, genetically, an expansive replica of the queen herself.

This weakening, paired with diminishing food supplies, has proved a deadly combination for our most proficient of pollinators. Bees are unable to stand up to the the onslaught of stressors they are faced with as they attempt to adapt to a chemical-laden modern world. 

In many past civilizations, bees have been considered messengers; harbingers of truths revealed only to those who watched them closely and paid close enough attention to understand them. Bee Charmers have been revered throughout history, in many cultures world wide. Honey has been considered only fit for royal consumption: The Nectar of the Gods, (or, more accurately: Goddesses, certainly in the case of bees!) much like the paths of chocolate and coffee. 

Through more modern science, we have come to understand that bees have the ability to navigate, and can communicate complicated navigational messages via their scent and behavior. They are able to convey complex ideas like direction and location and to act upon those instructions, for the good of the hive. When I came to understand this, I had to ask myself: 

If bees are messengers, 

what is the message? 

When I came to the inevitable answer to that question, my next question simply had to be: 

How Can I Help?

This question, and, perhaps even more, its rather grim inevitable answer, led my husband and me to the decision to keep bees on our property in Colorado. We understand the seemingly insurmountable issues facing our world's bee population, and therefore our own food source, and we have decided to do what we can to help. 

Girl Holding Bee
Click here to help me source

As an early step in our preparation for the spring arrival of our bees, we have made an effort to observe our home landscape through an entirely different lens than we are accustomed to as we attempt to assure our new inhabitants a safe and adequate food source on our property.

Here on the high, windy Colorado prairie, mostly grasses are native. The prairie that develops at this elevation, longitude and latitude is a Mid-grass prairie as opposed to the tall grass prairies of more humid climates, where grasses can reach 7 feet high and more, or a short grass prairie, which comes with less rainfall and scrubbier landscape. We love watching the grasses on our prairie wave like wind on water, undulating in green-brown waves, reaching for the endless ice blue sky. 

Hollyhock

Grasses are a truly spectacular food source for domestic ungulates like cattle and horses. Huge wild Bison herds once thrived on the protein rich grains ripe grasses provide. Both our native antelope herd and our local migratory deer herds, and even the herd of domestic (?) yaks that lives down the road, feed on the grasses as well as the grains that the grasses produce. While grasses are an excellent food source for all of these animals, all of which are either domestically grown or hunted for their meat (and in the case of the yaks, their milk and fiber as well), grasses are not nearly as perfect a food source for the honeybee or for other pollinators. We began to understand that, if we want to keep bees and feed them, we need to provide for them in the form of the food that is best for them:

 Flowers!

In order to do this, we have changed our land-management practices to accommodate a creature on whom we all depend.  We are growing plants and planting trees with an eye on what will provide the most benefit to bees.

And we are doing as much of it as we can 

from seed. 

The Fragrance of Beauty

It has been said that when Claude Monet painted his gardens at Giverny, France, he was creating his art twice. Monet believed that the garden itself was as noble a palette as any primed canvas, and he planned for and planted his gardens with a consistent awareness that what he was creating was, ultimately, beyond even himself. Monet understood that a garden grows and changes over time, yet is an enduring fixture of the land; once created, forever altered.

Spring at Claude Monet's home, Giverny
Photo by Ariane Cauderlier
Giverny Photo

Monet's Gardens at Giverny have evolved over time and remain unique masterpieces unto themselves. Although it is difficult to say how the great artist would have envisioned his gardens 100 years into the future as he was planting and creating them, we do know that what he did create grew to become a lively and dynamic place, full of life and light and shadows.  Monet's romantic flower garden in the 21st Century would be an apt setting for Titania and Bottom's brief, drug-induced romance had Shakespeare's world and Monet's collided in a future likely unimagined to either artist.

Monet worked with color and light in the garden much as he did on canvas with his paintings. He would mix common plants, like daisies and delphinium, with rare species he paid premium prices for. The overall effect of his flower garden, Clos Normand, is a wild, fantastic, overgrown dreamscape.

I am following Nature without being able to grasp her.

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.

                                                                                   
                                                                                                   --Claude Monet                   

Flower of Life II
Wikipaintings

Georgia O'Keeffe was also innately drawn to flowers for her subjects, and she unabashedly delivered them to her canvas in their full lushness and corporeal glory. O'Keeffe's open admiration for the form of flowers and the sensuality of her brushstroke rattled the American art scene at the start of the 20th Century where Impressionists like Monet, Cezanne, Matisse and Manet were just being recognized as the new Masters. Yet here was an American, O'Keeffe, a woman no less, who was getting noticed for her paintings of, well, really sexy flowers.

As much as O'Keeffe appreciated the luscious, and perhaps even lascivious, form of the flower, she also revered the feral starkness of a prairie landscape. She had come to value the varied hues of the sun on the red-brown grass and the promise of rain in the clouds that cooled as they rose above the far off mountains and plateaus.


O'Keeffe spent part of her young adult life as an art teacher in a small, dusty town in the arid Texas panhandle. She spent much of her later life in the stark scenery of New Mexico where she loved exploring the countryside by taking long, rambling walks, a habit she cultivated on the Texas prairie, where she would return home and paint what she felt. O'Keeffe would effectively juxtapose the lush, dewy moisture of a flower in full bloom against the sand brown expansiveness of the undulating grass-land prairie.

Ghost Ranch Landscape
SouthwestArt 

Her approach to art as an expression of raw emotion through painting flowers and landscape was new in a world that had only recently accepted Impressionism as an art form that managed to blur the lines of the corporeal concreteness seen in a still life with the painstaking and stoic realism of the Dutch Masters.

While O'Keeffe quintessentially captured the harsh, brash beauty of the prairie, landscape as raw emotion is epitomized in Andrew Wyeth's renowned depiction of Christina's World. Here Wyeth captures the limited vision of Anna Christina Olson, a neighbor's daughter, stricken by what is often presumed to be polio. Christina, unable to walk upon her own legs and lacking modern aids to mobility, used her arms to drag her lower body about her family farmhouse and acres of prairie. The painting captured the collective imagination of an American public at about the same time that O'Keeffe was introducing the marriage of floral portraits to prairie landscapes entwined with bleached antlers, stark bats with wing unfurled and other symbolic reminders of our own mortality.

Christina's World
Andrew Wyeth

There is a wild, tawny beauty contained within Christina's World, despite its inherent and, perhaps even tragic, limitations. Wyeth, son of artist/illustrator N.C. Wyeth, was reared upon the prairie he so candidly depicts through the lens of this young girl with profound physical restrictions. Though Christina's World is, perhaps, the most famous of Wyeth's paintings, the prairie was often the golden hued backdrop of Wyeth's subjects and was sometimes the subject itself. His inherent love of the grass-land prairie landscape is apparent in his art. The basic cast and hue of many of his paintings is the red-brown color of ripe prairie grass, perhaps suggesting his ever-present backdrop of rolling, golden, grass-covered hills.

I have come to appreciate these artists who feel an emotional connection to the immense beauty that Nature provides. I love Georgia O'Keefe's open emotional response to being moved by the raw sensuality contained within a single blossom as well as Monet's desire to provide a fragrant feast of a display through his careful cultivation of an array of blooms and blossoms. I value Wyeth's gift of capturing the wind in the grass as it swirls around the fair hair of a child as well as his his unabashed depiction of the limits of life. I, too, have grown to love the beauty of a blossom that dares to bloom on the prairie, in all its moods and windy wildness. My humble attempts to tame it or to coax something from it are often withered by the wind and the intense sun that marches relentlessly across the vast, uninterrupted sky.

Yet, here, on the tawny, sun-drenched, wind-swept prairie, is where passion often lies, flowing in waves like the wind on the grass, waiting for its chance to bloom.

So Much Depends

We refer to our family's large compost pile as "The Midden Heap," playfully recalling a long gone era of kings and castles and their keeps. The midden in our yard hardly serves to supply sufficient sustenance for a kingdom, but it does provide needed nourishment to our land and to the many things that we grow, or attempt to grow here. The growth and health of all of our plants and trees depend upon our midden heap and, since we consume many of the fruit and vegetables we grow, our own health relies upon it as well. 

The midden grows out of the normal function of our daily lives. We consciously contribute to it the by-product from nearly all of the organic material that makes its way through our home. The pile nearly takes on a life of its own as the seasons wax and wane, rising and growing through the fall and winter as it is served its vegetable rich meals; warmly digesting its way towards spring; dwindling and shrinking through late spring and summer, as we harvest and distribute the rich results. Then replicating itself so that its twin can begin the whole cycle over again. 

Paper bags are an essential part of our midden. They will break down in the heap and will allow enough air to circulate and will also retain moisture, an essential component to the necessary decay. Bits of broccoli, carrot tops, the top, skin and core of a pineapple, or the skins of the limes we have likely reamed for a killer key lime martini, all get wrapped up in a paper towel and tossed into a paper bag lined with crumpled newspaper (the circulars we all inevitably get) to absorb the particularly juicy parts. 

These bag bombs get thrown on top of the pile along with occasional pizza boxes, paper towel and toilet paper tubes, and even shipping boxes that have traveled back and forth from friends and family, eventually retired. All of this paper helps to retain moisture in the compost, which is essential for our plants to thrive in our dry, sandy soil and intense high-altitude sunlight. Each item we add to the mix adds it own mix of nutrients to the blend, which will provide nourishment for our vegetables, flowers, trees and shrubs as it all breaks down and becomes nutrient rich soil. 

For many years I harvested the compost our midden produced in a red, metal Radio Flyer wagon, the same wagon I used to pull my children in when they were small. The first task before the stuff could make it into the wagon was to toss the compost from one pile to the other with the new pile, the parts that were still rough and not broken down, becoming the next year's midden heap. As I tore into the pile, the compost would sift through the tines of my pitchfork, capturing the essential remains of a year's worth of family meals. Once refined, I would back my wagon up to the midden and scoop in the results. My wagon and I would make our rounds, delivering the rich loam that would help our trees withstand the next season's barrage of wind and sometimes brutal high plains weather.

As I pulled my wagon over countless miles from the midden heap and back again, delivering the distillation of a year's nutrition for an American family of four, I was frequently brought to mind a William Carlos Williams poem that I have always loved. It was my wagon that served wheelbarrow duty, and there are no white chickens in the yard, yet(!). But those untold treks across my land, processing the leavings of our meals to feed our vegetables and trees at a time in my life when I struggled to feed my own children,  made me very aware of how very much does, in fact, depend upon our individual actions and how much depends upon each of us, doing whatever it is we can do to improve the world around us. Each of us, individually together. It is a theme that played frequently in my mind as the red wagon carried compost to the plants and trees. 

Last year, towards the end of the season, when I pulled my dented, dirty, squeaky, red, metal wagon up to the midden heap and backed it up, the rivets on the wheels disconnected from the frayed and rusty metal frame. The final crack of the metal sent a stitch of sadness to my heart. That wagon had been my companion for more than 20 years. It had helped to carry my children and then it helped to feed them. It felt somehow that this wagon represented the distillation not of organics, but  of a period of my life. A time when so much for me depended upon that red wagon. It helped me survive and I am grateful. 

I parked my wagon next to the midden heap, and there it will stay. For as long as it likes. 

Our new garden wagon serves its purpose perfectly and we like it very much. It is larger than my old wagon so it carries more, and the sides come down, which makes it easy to unload. It is yellow, not red. We looked at Radio Flyers, even the metal ones (they do still make them) with a higher side since we really need to carry large loads, but it somehow just didn't seem right. 

The Red Wheel Barrow

--William Carlos Williams

 Radio Flyer

so much  depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain 

water

beside the white

chickens.

Reclamation through Reformation

Blizzards are one of my favorite weather events. As the wind rages and snow piles up, or promises to pile up, I feel particularly connected to the land yet tremendously humbled by such a tyrannical display of two major shaping forces, wind and water. I heard thunder in the approaching snowstorm. The awesomeness of the power represented by the rumble reverberated through my mind and made its way into my dreams as the  storm howled on through the night, driving sparkling blankets of crystalline moisture in its path.

The morning after 

One of the most rewarding reasons for living on the high plains is our immense and unobstructed view of sweeping weather events. Since our westward vista is the Front Range of the Rockies, we bear witness to the titanic mid-air collisions of major air masses as they make their way eastward towards Kansas and Nebraska. My heart belongs to this ancient prairie, which was once buried fathoms deep beneath an immense inland sea. I feel deeply connected to the past here, where native peoples roamed and hunted the once vast herds of bison and antelope, and where more recent American pioneers crossed to build new lives and forge new fortunes by living off the wild and unyielding land.

For many years, we lent our small patch of prairie land to graze neighbor's horses. Horses are beautiful, sensitive, graceful creatures and since I grew up around horses in the self-proclaimed Cowboy Capital of Ogallala, Nebraska (of Larry McMurtry and Lonesome Dove fame), and since I have extremely fond memories of "cowgirling" there, it seemed only natural to keep horses ourselves, as we have the land to support them and they are lovely companion animals. Eventually, however, we came to realize how hard the horses were on the land, so we decided to evict the neighbors' horses and to reclaim and reseed the prairie for the purpose of beekeeping instead. Bees are, of course, highly beneficial and, as they are in decline globally, and we have the space for them, we decided that this is something tangible and meaningful that we can do.

A hand-tilled acre

We welcome the moisture on the arid plains, despite the fact that it is a dry, desiccated snow driven by a raging, howling wind. In our attempt to reclaim the prairie, and to prepare for our bees, my husband and I have spent several recent days tilling an acre of land and hand seeding with prairie grass and high plains wildflower seed. This spring storm is an ideal top-dressing for the high plains appropriate, drought tolerant seed we planted on our prairie.

Seed selection is important, and I am very careful about the sources for our seeds, regardless of what we are growing. We prefer to buy organic seed, especially when we are growing vegetables for consumption, but we also want to be careful not to purchase seeds from sources like Monsanto that have GMOs  that are designed to release pesticides which destroy the insects that consume them, among other alterations. We primarily purchase heirloom seeds so that we can harvest the seeds for a stronger, healthier and more adaptive crop each year.

2013 Seed Catalog

One of our favorite sources for seeds is The Seed Savers Exchange, an organization committed to the conservation of American heritage seeds through preservation and exchange. When you place an order from Seed Savers, you have the option to join their registry so that the heirloom seeds you grow can be harvested and shared internationally. The registry allows prospective seed collectors worldwide to enjoy the vast variety and diversity of hearty heirloom strains. It also allows a potential collector to find varietals suited to a particular region or climate,  and to connect to our garden heritage through "participatory preservation."

The harvest and preservation of seed strains is new for us as hobby farmers. We are only just beginning to learn the processes and demands of harvesting and preserving seed strains as we continue to raise our own personal awareness of the demands of sustainability and the importance of avoiding monocultures, in all areas of life. We feel that this commitment to preservation and sustainability and to our garden heritage is important, even essential, as we attempt to navigate this "Brave New World" that continually unfolds before us in all its myriad complexities. 

Shenandoah Prairie

Welcome!

Our lifestyle here on the Colorado prairie is somewhat unique. We utilize, visit and appreciate our nearby city of Denver, but we perch at 6500 ft on the Palmer Divide, a geologic plateau about 40 miles southwest of the city itself. This distance allows us to enjoy a peaceful, yet somewhat rugged, lifestyle while still appreciating all of the wonders that our beautiful Mile High City has to offer. Our vista is the Front Range of The Rockies, from Pikes Peak to Long's Peak, a 70 mile span. Thus is the windswept and sundrenched backdrop for our small, beginning hobby farm on the Colorado Prairie.

View of The Rockies from Shenandoah Prairie 

As a hobby horticulturalist, I have encountered many challenges to my gardening skills on the Colorado Plains. And as we become more and more sensitive to the needs of our planet overall, my husband and I have attempted to respond in the ways that we can with the land that we have. We have worked to restore and reclaim the prairie and we are learning the beginnings of beekeeping. We are building an earth-sheltered greenhouse in an attempt to lengthen our growing season in order to grow heirloom vegetables 10 months out of the year, and harvest for 12. We are growing restorative, beneficial and medicinal herbs to preserve the strains of these important plants that will do well in our arid Colorado climate. Mostly, we are attempting to live with the land and to learn from and respect what the hobby of working the land has to offer.

Heirloom Harvest

I am often surprised at the lessons my small patch of land has yeilded. Not just obvious lessons, like patience (a hard one for me) and endurance, and appreciation of beauty, but also lessons about planning and business, decision making and relationships. Surprising, but appreciated. As a teacher by profession, it is apparently somehow embedded within me to share these lessons. I simply don't feel complete unless I know that I can teach the things that I have learned and am learning from living on the Colorado Prairie. It has so much to offer.  

This is our journey. Our trials and failures, our attempts and acquisitions, our musings and ponderings. Our learning.  As we become more aware, I understand that we are all learning together how to take more prudent care of our many precious resources and to make a more positive impact. Recorded here are our personal attempts, our own personal voyage.

Because it takes each of us. Individually. And it takes each of us, individually together.

I hope you'll join us!

Warmest Regards,

Annie