I think it's winter

Only a few short weeks ago I remember thinking, uh ohhhh, feels like fall. Even though the leaves are still on a lot of the trees, yesterday the air took another sharp turn, and bit through my clothes, letting me know winter is right around the corner. In years past I might have freaked out and tried to fight it. Ridiculous to argue with weather. It does what it wants. So this time I zipped up my sweatshirt and calmly went out to hang a blanket over the goats' doorway. They like their little house, and huddled together in there, they create a lot of heat. I just thought it would be nice to keep as much of that heat inside as possible. They're so funny. You know, you really can't keep a goat from going where it wants to go, any more than you can keep winter from happening... but for about five minutes after I put that blanket up, they were totally stumped. They ran up to it and stopped in their muddy tracks, as if it were a brick wall. Finally Sam, the runt, the "special" goat, the Holy Goat, we call him... Sam was the one to figure it out. Now they run in and out of there, blindly trusting that they won't bang into anything scary on the other side. Smart goaties. That's the way to handle winter... Trust it. Wander right through it. On the other side is spring.

By the time I got all my beads made, took care of the animals, answered a few phone calls and emails, and thought about my own dinner and evening plans, it was 9:00 already. So I had a little Here Comes Winter Celebration. I brought in some fire wood, split it for kindling, sliced up some peasanty bread and good cheese, opened a bottle of red, built a fire in the kiva fireplace, and then sat down to relax and read a book. No music, no TV. Just a nice little evening in my favorite room. The dining room. Not my favorite because of the dining part, but because it's a cozy little adobe room with curved walls, big windows, a soft little couch, and the welcoming fireplace. We heat the whole house with wood. The stove in the living room is the real heat, but we have two of these small, traditional kivas that warm my soul more than they warm the room. This is how I want to spend the winter. I'll even move over and let Rick sit with me. He'll be home tomorrow! Hooray on so many levels! One of them... he'll split the wood and build the fire... life is good.