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Kate Spring

~ growing a deep-rooted life

Kate Spring

Tag Archives: snow

What the camera won’t capture

28 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by Kate Spring in Nature/Environment

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

family outing, nature, New Jersery, snow

Our morning:

A walk in the woods along a ridge-line trail rising up from the Musconetcong River.  I didn’t have  my camera, but that wouldn’t have captured the fresh cold smell of the snow and the slight sinking of our feet as we traipsed through it, or my surprise at the plump green rhododendron leaves peeking out from their hats of snow, or the dogs’ reluctant restraint as we told them to heel.  It wouldn’t have captured Waylon’s laugh and the feel of sprinkles on my neck as I grabbed hold of a beech tree bent under the weight of new snow and shook, the icy flakes pouring to the ground like sugar.

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Unexpected Gifts

04 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by Kate Spring in Nature/Environment, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

snow, Vermont, winter, writing

There are days when frustrations turn into gifts: getting the car stuck in the snowbank, making my husband late for work, making me miss work…sitting in the yurt on a cold morning, alone, as smoke rises from the chimney and honey-sweetened milk steams on the stove, pulling the blankets over my legs as I finally put pen to paper again.

I am learning once more the way moments truly move, without speed, without knowledge of a beginning and end.  Winter is whispering in my ear again, bringing me back to the blank canvas where possibility begins.

I whisper back: here I am

IMG_1818

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February Snow

24 Wednesday Feb 2010

Posted by Kate Spring in Nature/Environment, Seasons

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Tags

change, dogs, environment, exploration, land, nature, place, snow, thoughts, United States, USA, weather, winter, writing

The snow is falling in big white clumps, soft and heavy and unrelenting. For most of February, the ground looked as if it had been stripped naked, and it laid with sparse white patches unable to cover the brown grass. But today the raw land, shocked like a sleeping child whose blanket has been ripped off, is finally being covered again.

I laugh in the sticky snow, which coats my hat, wets my hair and my jacket, and I wonder how an element that brings sleep to the land can inspire so much liveliness in myself. The flakes started falling yesterday evening and continue now, steady as a river in spring, and I find joy in the extra effort that walking demands; I slow down, I see snowflakes thick on branches and on my eyelashes. It has been a long time since I’ve experienced a day like today, surely the first one of this season.  Monty, the twelve-year-old beagle I am taking care of this week, marches along the back porch, carving a small labyrinth with walls as tall as him. When I take him for a walk he spins in circles at the door, impatient until it is opened and then excited as he jumps over the snow bank, sniffing through the fast forming layers and marking his territory every few yards.

I heard from my friend Quinn, who lives in Washington, D.C., how the city shut down in the blizzards that struck, and how she found herself enveloped in a quiet that only snow can bring to an unprepared place. Montpelier, Vermont, on the other hand is lively today. Cars continue like any other day down the road, and I pass by people layered in sweaters and jackets, hat and scarves, smiling with their eyes, their mouths drawn up high like wool socks over long underwear, warm and protective. It is the snow we have been waiting for; we’re finally feeling redemption after the endless reports of storms hitting the Mid-Atlantic States and stopping before they could reach the mountains and hills of New England.

I am happy. As I sit here, now back inside with my coat drying out and me changed from slushy jeans into warm sweatpants, I can see the snow still falling straight and heavy to the ground. It will be a quiet night, the land once again insulated from the cold winter air. When I walk downtown to yoga class, I’ll smile at the soft compression beneath my boots, the safety that comes with snow banks between sidewalk and road, and the magic of new space that fresh snow always brings.

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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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