The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Cross-quarter days

Fall gardenThe cross-quarter days (rather than solstices and equinoxes) mark the beginnings of seasons in ancient Irish and east Asian cultures.  Even though these four days --- halfway between the solstice and equinox --- are primarily pagan holidays, we tend to celebrate them without knowing it with Groundhog's Day, May Day, and Halloween.  And I've noticed that the cross-quarter days do feel like more realistic representations of the annual divide than the more mainstream seasonal holidays of Christmas/Solstice and Easter/Equinox.

Newly painted East WingMark and I mostly took All Soul's Day off to celebrate the onset of winter.  (As you can see, I couldn't quite resist putting the first coat of paint on the newly christened East Wing since the afternoon was so brilliant.)  Although a bit of greenery remains here and there, most of the leaves have fallen and we crossed two big hurdles this weekend --- the first fire in the wood stove and the first summer produce thawed out of the freezer.  Neither was really necessary since days are quite warm (once the sun comes up over the hill around 11 am) and there's still gobs of food in the garden.  But both felt like nice splurges to mark the changing seasons. Happy Winter!

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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The East wing is looking good! I especially like the window arrangement. And that coat of paint suits it well.

When visiting New Zealand I once stayed in a house that was built in stages. Something was added every time the owner needed extra room. It was a slightly odd, but very interesting and homely house. Yours has the capability to grow in the same direction, I think.

Comment by Roland_Smith Tue Nov 2 18:05:24 2010
That's just what we're going for. I'm glad you like it!
Comment by anna Wed Nov 3 21:07:46 2010





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