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Kate Spring

~ growing a deep-rooted life

Kate Spring

Category Archives: Family

The Wildness and the Wild

08 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by Kate Spring in Family, Wildness, Writing

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Tags

motherhood, nature, poetry, spirituality, wild, wildness

4/6/2016

6:12 am — A periwinkle sky, soft and bright and so translucent it seems to levitate above the mountains.  Which of course it always does, but only now do I see just how the horizon is born from light.

6:22 am — The sky drifts into pastels, pink and peach.  Waylon sleeps curled next to me as I read, and I think I am happy, content, peaceful, except none of these words are right.  It’s something quieter, deeper, something nameless that fills me.

It eases the urgency of doing.

6:32 am — The light has cascaded from the sky onto the mountains themselves.

The mountains are like a farm woman: strong, steady, curves around the muscles.  Sometimes they’re merely noticed, but eventually truly seen, causing the observer to stop and breathe in the beauty, the wildness, the stateliness, the pure bedrock of life at once tangled and ordered; a being large enough to hold contradictions and surprises and still offer comfort in the sheer mass of her embrace.

When I hold my son, I imagine the mass of the mountains in my hug.

When I hold my son, I feel his energy and I realize how much slower I’ve become.  How motherhood necessitates that.  How the wind, which once directed me, now flows through him.  How I’ve come into conversation with the roots of trees.  How I’ve learned to match the pace of mountains.

He is the wildness.  I am the wild.

When I hold my son, I realize I have become a home.

6:38 — He sleeps.  I write.  The light pours down the mountainside.

In another few hours it will reach the west-facing hillside and be upon us all.

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Gifts for Waylon: The Space to go Inside

21 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by Kate Spring in Family

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

christmas, family, life, nature, Solstice, traditions, winter, Winter Solstice

P1040322
P1040238

The weeks leading to solstice and Christmas pull me in two directions.  The shortening days and lengthening nights ask me to slow down, to quiet myself, to rest and reflect and snuggle in with my family around the wood stove.  The holiday parties and family gatherings and gift-giving ask me to pile on extra outings, to break our rhythm and stay out late, to drive north and south and be merry.

And I do love these gathering times, eating good food with people I love.  And I do love the quiet darkness, the nights we have no obligations and stay home on the farm.

As we create our own traditions, though, this is what I want to give Waylon:

Candles on Solstice, homemade truffles, and poems to celebrate each other and the world.

I want to give him the space to go inside himself when he needs it, when the darkness invites him into long nights and gives him stars to find his way.

 

 

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This Moment

21 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by Kate Spring in Family

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

photography, toddler, winter

{this moment} ~ A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. {a tradition from SouleMama}

winter walk

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Another Winter in the Yurt

10 Monday Nov 2014

Posted by Kate Spring in Family, Seasons

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

family, home, toddler, winter, yurt, yurt living

Winter, 2013

Winter, 2013

Snow flurries breezed over our hillside and into the valley this past week, and though the land isn’t white by any means, we’re only 6 weeks from solstice, and the shorter days and colder nights bring us closer to the bare quietness of winter.  This will be our fourth winter in the yurt, and inside we are making some changes.

It’s Waylon’s second winter in the yurt, but first as a toddler.  He’s not one to sit still unless he’s snuggling in for a book (and even then, he’s always ready to go grab more books and bring them back to us to read).  He walks in circles around the yurt, climbs on anything he can, and is reaching higher everyday to pull down whatever it is that’s just out of reach.

So, to make the yurt more toddler-friendly, and winter ready, we’ve made a few changes…

  • We put a door on the yurt!When our dogs broke the screen door this summer, we replaced it with a blanket (very traditional!).  The solid door needed some repairs and re-painting, and it took until October to finally get around to it (though we could have used it during some torrential rain storms when water pounded right through the blanket and onto the floor).  The door used to be a lovely antique shade of green, but we only had one color of paint on hand, and so “grandma’s sweater” blue now graces our door, and I have to say, I love its brightness.

Our Door: Grandma's Sweater Blue

  • A homemade railing for the lofted bed~When the heat of summer rolled in and the lofted bed became too stuffy and hot, we moved our sleeping quarters down to the futon.  No more, though!  Edge built a safety railing for the loft and our toddler who loves to test the limits.  With the futon as a couch again, we’ve re-claimed some space on our “main floor.”

toddler bed railing

  • A play nook for Waylon~With a little cleaning out and rearranging, the space under the lofted bed is now a play nook for Waylon.  With a bookcase, his toys, an oversized pillow, and a string of Christmas lights, I often look over while I’m making dinner or cleaning up to see him in the nook pulling books down and banging on a drum.  (Of course, the dogs appreciate the pillow, too).

Waylon's play nookAnd then there are the little things, like doing dishes every day, sweeping each night, and keeping the dining table relatively clutter-free (relatively).  As we nestle in, creating a nest that we can all find space in is truly important to add peace to our days.  Though we talk more and more of what kind of house we’ll build (and I admit, these conversations almost always start by me), living in the circle of a yurt brings a coziness I’ve yet to find anywhere else.

As we tucked into bed last night with the warmth of a fire in the wood stove and a bright moon just peaking over the ridge, I said, “I love our life.  I love our boy, and our yurt, and being so cozy.”  And as Edge smiled and clicked off the light, we drifted into an early winter night, ready for our fourth winter in the yurt.

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The Pre-Winter Flurry

06 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by Kate Spring in Family, Seasons

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Tags

family, farming, life, seasons, Vermont, winter

in the woodsFall harvests, building projects, writing projects, a toddler. I’ve been away from the blog lately, but have not been idle. Snow is forecasted again, and another night of temps in the low 20s, and so the last of the storage roots call for harvesting, the high tunnels ask for plastic on their end-walls, and the carrots and kale under low-tunnels wait to be tucked in once more (those winds that whip across this hillside are a mean contender against our sandbags and row-cover).

Still, we find a few hours here and there to walk in the woods. In the midst of this pre-winter flurry, it’s quieting to feel the slight spring of layered leaves underfoot, to stop and lean in close enough to see the buds at the end of bare limbs. Come spring they’ll unfurl in a bright green splash, but for now they are wrapped tight and ready for winter. Soon, we will be, too.

in the woods

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This Moment

24 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by Kate Spring in Family, Nature/Environment

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

family, family outing, photography, rock climbing, this moment

{this moment} ~ A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. {a ritual from Soule Mama}rock climbing

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This Moment

17 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by Kate Spring in Family

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

autumn, family, home, life, photography, yurt

{this moment} ~ A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.  {a ritual from Soule Mama}

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He knows the taste of dirt and rocks

09 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by Kate Spring in Family, Farming

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

family farm, nature, parenting, toddler

Waylon broadforkingI don’t know if Waylon will grow up to be a farmer, but I can tell you this: he loves the broadfork, the soil, pulling carrots out of the ground.  He knows the taste of dirt and rocks; he knows the feel of uneven stones on his bare feet.

Maybe he’ll leave the farm when he grows up.  There’s so much we can’t control, despite our dreams for him.  I don’t know where he’ll roam, but I can tell you this: he knows how to explore and how to dig into the earth like a worm.  If he remembers only this by the time he’s grown, that will be enough.

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this moment

26 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by Kate Spring in Family

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

life, photography, toddler

{this moment} ~ A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.  {a tradition from SouleMama}

drinking yogurt

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Lessons in Persistence, from a Toddler

17 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by Kate Spring in Family

≈ 5 Comments

P1030112There is a little elf-child walking, yes walking, around the yurt these days. He pushed himself up on Sunday, but instead of waving his hands and letting out some sort of happy announcement of a yell as I’ve come accustomed to, he put one foot forward, and then another, and through some wobbling kept coming all the way to me, a distance of perhaps 5 feet. The rest of the day, he stood and stepped and fell and stood and stepped and fell, and kept going with his little legs gaining strength and balance all the while.

I look at Waylon and wonder at the persistence he has. What would the world be like if we held onto this beyond our toddler years? This ability to fall down and get back up without a second thought, to take our falls with smiles and to stand again with determination and excitement? I’ve made the decision to follow my passions, to be fully alive and present in this life. It’s something that became even more important when Waylon was born. I want to give him the example of full living, and of creating a life that truly brings us alive. But sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes being fully present and alive means being fully with uncomfortable feelings and accepting the harder moments. It takes so much persistence to keep going.

But Waylon, he keeps going, and he does it joyfully. I’m learning that he already lives the way I want to show him—that he is the one giving me the example of full living. Those hard, uncomfortable moments are simply the fall, the burn of muscles strengthening, and with persistence I can breathe through the wobble and find balance again.

Thank you, my little boy. 

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Welcome!

Kate Spring

Kate Spring

Welcome to The Good Heart Life: an organic gardening and lifestyle blog where we grow beauty, joy, and nourishment for the body, soul, and earth. I'm Kate Spring: organic farmer, mother, and chief inspiration officer at Good Heart Farmstead and The Good Heart Life. Grow along with us, and together we'll cultivate a more lively, joyful world one {organic} seed at a time.

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