Merry Christmas

I don't know what the rest of you think, but Christmas is a time of such wealth. It sounds oxymoronic, especially after I've spent a month's wages on toys for the family. But regardless of bad commercial habits, people just seem richer in other ways: kinder, slower, happier. As I harvest some greens for tonight's salad, I realize again it is a good time to reflect. And when I do so, I almost always find that I have so much.

Today, especially, I feel like I have too much: to much wrapping paper, too many cardboard boxes, too many brown paper bags from spent luminarias. With the weather co-operating and with a few extra days off of work, let me tell you what I will be doing the next couple of days. The wrapping paper and cardboard boxes will be place over the top of some of my dried tumble weeds. Then I'll put a good layer of mulch (in this case wood chips) to cover sufficiently to keep them buried. The sand from the luminarias will go into a base for short brick walkway. Paper bags and leftover candles will go into my compost bin. I have an artificial tree, but generally buy a "Charlie Brown" tree. That I will plant next to last year's.

Once again, I feel better about giving back to the earth as a way of saying thanks for all her generosity throughout the year.

Merry Christmas. Don't be strangers.

Wreath Making Materials

We seem to be getting a lot of evergreen cuttings lately. I don't fancy myself a genus/species wank so I can't tell you what kind of evergreens, only that there are some short needled boughs and some long needled boughs and some blue spruce-y boughs.





We have juniper branches, too. I even saw some holly branches with berries!

Come on down and browse our brush pile. Take some fire wood home with you.

I never have the gumption or know how to make craft things like wreaths and garlands, but I know that there are plenty of people who do. It's a great time of year to be working with this aromatic material. Sitting by the fireside lacing popcorn and berries through the needles for the birds. How festive.

Don't forget to recycle you Christmas trees here when the time comes.