When I wake up in the cold mornings, with the howling skies and the winds so sharp and clear they cut your teeth. The ground is hard as pure hate. The ice lurking dark and deep under the snow. I cannot believe that there will ever again be a morning when I sit getly on the step in the warm morning sun, to drink a big mug of coffee after the chores, dressed in a short skirt and singlet with sand-shoes and no socks.
I wake to a sunrise that makes me think of the sea. A choppy cold Atlantic sea. I was raised on a beach, you will remember, and people say to me don’t you miss the sea. Oh no I say- in the winter I am in a panoramic sea, wide open as though gravity is lost and the sea hurls itself above me and the plains laid beneath still as the age of sifting stone. Spitting at each other as they pass.
Foam capped waves mocking snow capped waves. Especially when the wind blows, whipping the spray of the snow up and launching it across at my windows. Then they both laugh and joke, earth and sky, linking arms blocking out all the sun, then go off to the pub for a drink and we sit and inhale and exhale and wait for the next horizonal bitter icey brawl.
The sun comes up across the plains and creeps in amongst my apple trees. It is hard to believe that in a few months there will be green growth. It is hard to believe that we will ever have green or warm or fruit and food from this garden again. Even harder to believe that nestled in the bellies of my cows and sheep (and hopefully soon my pig) there are little baby animals growing and changing, developing into leggy toddler babies. Waiting for the spring or at least the late winter.
How does anything survive out here.
Are we there yet I want to whine. Are we half way? How far until spring? Snivvle. I feel sick. I want to go to the toilet. Whine! Gabrielle put her foot in my face! Whine. Tim is picking his nose. WHINE. WHINE!! Can we stop so we can get down out of this winter for a wee break, so we can stretch our legs, kick a ball in the road, maybe have a picnic under that tree we just went past. Mum always made the best travelling picnics with tea in flasks with their own tin cups.
Well then, can’t we go any faster?!
But we cannot go any faster, the lowing sun moves at its own pace and there are no picnic stops from the winter. We must Drive On. With the windows down. Feeling every single particle of cold.
And then we reach the end of the day. The pink heat lamp with no heat at all slides gently back off the sea-sky pulling its own plug as it goes, the earth waves, see ya hon, let’s do it again tomorrow.
And I know that once again this girl from the beach, with the help of her good husband, has completed another farm day, fed the animals, kept everyone sheltered and warm, pitted her wits against the cold, cold weather, heaved around hay and straw and hauled water and kept the peace. Chatted to the peahens, missed her prize pig and tried a new cow safe knot on the gate, and we are all safe today. A good day. And I loved every bloody minute of it. Cold? Well it is winter.
I hope you all have a lovely day.
Your friend on the farm
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
53 responses to “A Cold Beauty is it’s own Consolation”
Really fabulous pictures…..you’re getting it very right:)
I love the picture with the writing desk. Beautiful post.
Those skies are simply stunning!
Blogging from Ecuador,
Kathy
That’s a really sensational photo at the beginning. And I love your analogy of the sky and prairie as the sea. There is nothing quite like a sunset sky scrubbed clean by cold wind. You just don’t see that here. I wonder how Sheila is getting on… My favourite animal-person.
Sigh I am so with you on the need for sun, warmth, green grass, green shoots pushing their way through the soil, small leaves unfolding on the branches. I suppose like you because I have the animals to look after (not as many as you though) it prevents me from just curling up into a ball and sleeping through this cold hard winter. Electric bill came in Saturday – need to cut back even more as my budget is being stretched too thin. I am retiring to bed at 8pm these days, to conserve energy LOL.
It certainly looks beautiful 😉
Your photos this morning are exquisite. When I saw your first image, I had forgotten you were landlocked. My brain saw gorgeous ocean also. Thanks for the wonderful wake-up!
Gorgeous Bay ofCeli 🙂 Laura
Enjoy this third Monday in January it means February is close by!
Your whole post – pictures and words – is a poem. A somewhat plaintive poem, but that is understandable, given the conditions you are working through.
I hope Sheila is starting to take an interest in her bridegroom to be. You must be in need of some more plonkers!
Love, V
I needed that. Thank you so much.
Good Morning Cecelia! What beautiful photos you have today. Even though we are in the middle of the cold winter, you managed to catch the beauty that is there too! Nice job.
Have a good day.
~ Carol
Here in Bulgaria the temperature is 17c its not supposed to be. It should be cold, snowy or at least raining. I t is doing nothing…come Spring and Summer the rivers and lakes will have scriveled away to dry beds..this is not normal.
can we have some of your cold.
love your skies, so red, so blue, so turbulent…don, t worry about Spring will soon be with you
Your words gave your whine a rosy taste. I am also whining and I whine for you when I check the weather.Planning my garden in protest of it all.I have to share that I saw a Huge murmuration of starlings yesterday, gave me pause at the beauty. Stay warm.
That sky, oh, that sky. That light, oh, that light. Today you have taken me back to the prairie of my youth and all those glorious sunrises and sunsets remembered. Thank you for this gift.