Hibernation Strategies

Winter is tough.

The bees are irritable and dislike visitors.

The farm is still accepting field trips, but my worm dance ("munch munch, wiggle wiggle, poop poop, soil,") feels inhibited by bulky clothes and stiff, cold limbs.

Without his bro Marley, Bosco is like Elmo without Cookie Monster...

...or Big Bird.

In an attempt to survive what promises to be another devastating NYC winter, I have picked up my knitting needles and sought out warm, bold colors in soft, fuzzy yarn.

I've begun to fantasize about plump, furry sheep waddling around me. In my daydreams, while weaving their coats between my fingers, I grab a particularly adorable sheep by the haunches and give it a quick snuggle. I shear it deftly, and am magically transported to a wonderful wool-washing parlor, insulated on the ceilings with huge knitted maps. Then, a spinning wheel just like the one in Sleeping Beauty, but without the needle, suddenly appears. I play it like a harp and expel long tufts of fiber from my fingertips. Big wood buckets soak summer berries. I immerse the soft wool. Soon, I am knitting myself a burgundy-hued cocoon.

2009 is the Year of the Bee. Will 2010 be the Year of the Sheep?

Are there any people out there that raise sheep for wool? Any spinners? I feel that it might be time to learn a new homesteading trade, (seeing how I live in Manhattan and all,) and plus...

sheep are fuzzy, too.

*"Bosco-As-Elmo" photos were costumed, staged, and taken by my kid sis Dana, seen at the summit of "Don't-Eat-The-Berry-Mountain," above.

I Heart Sun

Daylight Savings is over. In November, we "fall back" to Standard Time. We wake in darkness. In less than two months, most New Yorkers will return home from work in darkness, as well. The term "Standard" proclaims "This Is The Way It Is Supposed To Be."

This seems like one of those things that we humans impose upon ourselves for no reason, just to make our lives more difficult. (Or to satisfy somebody's secret agenda. I suspect Cheney.)

Why can't we accept that 6am in July just feels different than 6am in January? Instead, we've got to go messing with our parameters of conceptualization and all that jazz. Why must we torture ourselves with such major structural shifts in time, altering the way light-- we're talking about the SUN-- we're talking about the BIGGEST, most POWERFUL ball of FIRE in our UNIVERSE-- affects us, on such a regular basis?

A honeybee always follows light, wholeheartedly believing in the sun's ability to sustain. If a bee finds herself trapped in a glass bottle, she will likely die there, thrashing her body against the glass toward the light instead of toward the opening in the top. The bee does not abide by the logic discovered (or created) by humans. Does this make her stupider than the ugly fly, who dizzily, clumsily, ascents to freedom?

I think not.