Daily Things

      I love to hear the wind beating around the yurt at night. Spring is on it’s way, I can feel it in the warm days, and even the cold days smell different - fresher, as thought the whole world is just being born. Lenten penitence is difficult on the warm days. I want fresh cream in my coffee and a croissant with a poached egg for breakfast. Or crepes with cream cheese and blackberries. The blackberries won’t be ripe for months though, and crepes are off the menu until Easter. I have black coffee, or red tea, oatmeal or eggs. We couldn’t give up eggs, not with at least a half-dozen being laid each day.

I caught a tiny spider lurking near the mugs this morning and brushed him off onto the floor. It won’t be my fault if Luba finds him and licks him up, if I step on him, or if he gets swept up and thrown in the fire with the rest of the burnables. If he survives, all the best to him, if not, at least my luck is undamaged. I’ve been bitten too many times recently to have much fondness for spiders in my house.

This week I’m reading Exile and the Kingdom when I have the time to read, and envisioning my land free of snow and full of growing things. Wander through the leafless trees, it is easy to see the open-spaces in the woods that are often hidden in summer. I’ve found so many places for fairies to hide, reminding me of when Petka seemed so much like a changeling - small and secretive and elfish. We are wandering to collect wood for kindling, and for boiling sap into syrup. My husband does most of the firewood - felling trees, cutting, splitting, and stacking - Yarrow and I do the small collecting, finding kindling and supplemental wood on our walks.

It’s Monday. We are allowed no oil on Mondays. I’m making lentils and na’an for dinner, with red tea in my blue pot with the broken handle. When spring truly comes, I will make myself a new teapot and bake croissants in my new oven.