Winter Berries, Milkweed, and the First Snowfall
Hello, friends.
As a way to connect with you all more candidly and off of the IG/FB Meta-verse, I’ve decided to begin writing to you here at least once a week. I look forward to sharing some decidedly more in-depth reflections and stories with you from the farm, our design studio, and things that are generally inspiring or moving me week-to-week. Admittedly, I have so many things that I hope to share with you and look forward to doing so here. Like many of you, I’m sure, I find myself creatively stifled by the never-ending social media scroll, and yet, it is so pervasive and important for small businesses like ours, no matter how rote it has become these days. My solution? Bringing it back to the old-fashioned journal/blog post! Certainly not reimagining the wheel here, but hopefully you will enjoy at least some of my musings :-)
Eliza & Rae with the first truckload of Winter Berry and our Arctic Sun Dogwood
Yesterday on the farm we harvested the final haul of our Red Winter Berries (Ilex verticillata). Most of these will make their way to our CSA members this Thursday, and the ones that don’t will get tucked into festive evergreen and berry bundles that we are offering for sale this season. One of the things I love most about this time of year is how everyone turns toward the natural world in order to adorn their homes for the holiday season. There is something so inherently beautiful to me about our collective turning toward the brambles, the pods, and the woods in order to bedeck our holiday homes. I think that it’s this collective noticing of nature, of revering the humble winter berry, or fawning over the grace of the pine bough in a perfectly articulated wreath, that makes December feel particularly magical for me. It’s a celebration of nature and a reminder of just how much beauty is always around us if we only look a bit closer.
When I was a child in the 1990’s my parents would pile my sister and I and our childhood dog , Rocky Silver, into the back of their Jeep Cherokee and we’d drive around our rural town just to “ooohhh” and “aaaahhh” at people’s holiday displays. We would stop in front of every house we saw with even just a wreath on the door or a string of lights wrapped around a bush — we payed equal attention to each display, no matter how big or small. Every effort was worthy of our attention. We would comment on the shape and color of the bows, how we liked the way the lights were wrapped, or oh! look at how the tree makes such a beautiful shadow on the lawn! Unbeknownst to them, my parents were teaching us how to engage with an artistic tableau— how to look with the intent of really seeing, and how to appreciate beauty even in the smallest moments. I am forever grateful to them for this, and for how this simple ritual has shaped my life.
This year I am particularly loving the beauty of hollowed-out milkweed pods and how their skeletal shape has such a lovely silvery hue to them. I’ve been using these in many of our evergreen wreaths in the past week, as well as our custom flower arrangements. They are just so stunning!
As the first snow falls today here in Western Massachusetts, I am grateful for a warm woodstove, the dart of the birds across my windows as they find their way to the feeder I just hung, and for the omnipresent quietude of snow.
Wishing you all a peaceful day,
Rebecca