Welcoming Winter Woods

A winter forest is welcoming

in spite of - 

and precisely because of - 

her bitter barrenness

The freeing grace of winter hikes 

is found in their openness 

where every direction

is a new and possible path

2019 Apple Cider Festival!

DATE CHANGE: OCTOBER 19th is the new date for this event!

The time is nigh upon us! the Eighth Semi-Biennial Apple Cider Festival and Highwater Hootenanny is just two weeks away. If you're nearby, stop in for a great good time.

Cabin Update...

"Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller’s wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time."

~Henry David Thoreau

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.”
~Henry David Thoreau

“I have, as it were, my own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself.”   

~Thoreau

Raising the Roof

Day One of roof raising... We got more than 1/3 of the way done with just a small crew of workers. We're planning on working the next two Saturdays, so I suspect that we'll have the cabin under roof by some time in June, weather permitting.

The nice thing about this stage of work is that it only takes a few people to make progress. Of course, the more, the merrier.

Progress!

Working on the Cabin

Mad Lilies

In spite of the dark in the sky
and the stones on the ground,
she danced like mad lilies
in a storm
Her bare feet fearless
in her persistent determination

Apple Cider Festival photos...

Fall is in the air at Grassroots Farm...

Apple Cider Fest and Highwater Hootenanny 2018

THIS SUNDAY! Photos and videos likely coming soon...

Cabin-Raising

The folks at Graceroots Farm (and their friends) have begun the process of building an off-grid small cabin down near the pond. This will be a multi-use building, for visitors to spend the night, for an art studio to have a quiet place to work... as a bird blind, to watch the nature happening around the pond and in the woods surrounding it. The first major work day happened recently and they managed to get the flooring down. A very good start!

 Amos Drilling.

 Returning to work, after lunch

The floor joists

Chief Carpenter, Phil

The subflooring, completed

Also, this year for the first year, the folks at the farm collected sap from the maple trees to make their first batch of Grassroots Maple Syrup! Yum.

Annual Farm Retreat

The site for a proposed little cabin in the woods. Little man by the window, stood, must be added.

The day involved clearing the area and cutting down a few small trees, then measuring and planting flags every four feet on each side, to mark where the posts will go.

Laying it out: Completed. Now, to just add a cabin...

Upon the Frozen Pond We Walked...

Winter Beauty...