Happy New Year
Last night I wish I had gorged on grapes while bells rung, toasting my feet on the fire of my (least favorite) calendar, then running all over the house opening the windows and doors and running all the way back around closing them. I wish I had grabbed the whiskey bottle and a lump of coal, rubbed the coal on my face, – commando-ed out to the barn (though I would be wearing underwear lest we get confused, ) and I would have burst through the front door of the barn, I wish I had been singing, kissing the animals and sloshing the whiskey about shouting – Don’t mention the Scottish Play! I would have done a jig! Sheila would have been deeply underwhelmed. But it was so cold yesterday, I would have had to wear three pairs of socks and two pairs of gloves.
Then I might have broken into the tinder box and let off all the fireworks while Queenie and I shared a jug of ginger wine (How did Queenie get to be the senior cow!) and TonTon and BooBoo set off rockets behind our considerable backs. We could have gone for a walk to look for wild animals and good luck corn, banging pots and lids to ward away the bad spirits (and probably the wild animals!)
Then the three kittens could have picked imaginary roses and had a parade but no-one would have been watching because we would all be sorting and soaking the black eyed peas for New Years lunch, throwing out all the peas that had blue eyes or even brown eyes while drinking turkish coffee and throwing the grinds down to tell our future.
Then we might have sat around crouched over a fire, the dogs and I, melting lead and dropping it into cold water to see what we could see. Once I made a dragonfly, but I cannot remember what year that was or what the following year was like. Probably a lot of hovering. If we had sat there long enough around our smoky fire, staring into the buckets of water and lead, Daisy and Kupa and Mama and Big Dog and Scrapper and Mr Pink would have come out of the shadows to sit a while. But only if you pretend not to pay attention. You must never look directly at the New Years ghosts. You have to let them be.
But I didn’t do any of that. I drunk pear cider and we ate pickled herrings (John’s tradition, actually he ate them, I didn’t – all that salty mayonnaise is not to my liking) and way before Midnight I was fast asleep in my big boat bed, dreams and New Years Ghosts gently rocking me through the night tides, from one year to the next and now I have woken up in 2015.
No fowl will be eaten today. The Matriarch will cook lunch (steak) and in the evening John will cook little wonton bundles made with go-forward pork and shrimp – filled with good luck – this is another of his traditions. I am happy to be cooked for, this is the best kind of good luck and a most excellent tradition. Otherwise it is business as usual and hopefully not as cold this morning as yesterday, that blowing cold made my hands cry.
I hope you all have a lovely day.
Happy New Year from the farmy.
celi
ps. I know we were going to drive to Indiana on Friday to pick up the pig huts but now John is workingon Friday so once again I am at an impasse. I cannot drag that wonky trailer by myself. Never mind. Something will turn up.
pss. You and I leave for New Zealand in FOURTEEN days. This time we are going to stay on an authentic New Zealand farm, you will love it, a big beautiful farm house that is rented out as a wedding venue with porches and orchards, shearers quarters, barn and fields of wild flowers. My daughter and I will be cooking! And you are coming along!
52 Comments on “Happy New Year”
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thekitchensgarden 
Happy new year, Celi! You might not have done any of that stuff, but we saw you do it all anyway. Here’s to another year of adventures. I think it’s going to be grand.
How lovely for you to start the year by being cooked for! We are off to our neighbours for dinner, so I’m having a lovely start too! All the best to you and yours for the coming year.
Christine
Happy New Year – it must have been exhausting doing all that, even if you were asleep 😉
Next year I’ll teach you how to make pickled herring without mayonnaise in any of a dozen different ways you might like and suggest you melt silver to tell your fortune coming : that is what I have done all my life . . . . and my feet are sore[sih] from dancing the New Year in till nearly four in the morning and then having to cook a traditional dress-up Euro New Year’s Day lunch for all those still around . . . good first day of the year: may it continue on so for you and me 🙂 ! [I have just closed my eyes and seen them too . . . ]
Farewell 2014, you helped me grow older/wiser and taught me many a thing. Hello 2015, with you I know we will laugh and cry as this is just what we do….but as with all beginnings and endings there is hope and prayer for that which will come.
Happy New Year to all of the Fellowship! (Now go get those Peas on the stove)
I too was in dreamland before the bells tolled. The journey home from a busy week in Dublin was hard work because the day forgot to dawn and many drivers refused to switch on their lights, What were they saving them for. An accident? I look forward to some sunshine when virtually travelling with you to New Zealand in a couple of weeks time. May 2015 be a healthy year for all the farmy family, fellowship and most important the animals. May abundance, contentment and peace come dancing through your door!
And we too were in dreamland at midnight when the doorbell rang: our first ever first footers in 23 years in FranceFrance, two young men we didn’t know, to wish us Happy New Year/
Happy New Year Cecilia and all my farmy friends. Being an early bird I was in bed well before any balls dropped, and up to a cold frosty morning (19F). Wish I was closer Miss C I would drive to get your pig huts with you!
Happy New Year Cecilia, I try to get my mom’s herring beet salad recipe . I don’t think there is any mayonnaise in it.
I love beetroot, that sounds wonderful!..
Happy New Year, c! I’m looking forward to a whole new year of news from the farmy.
A very happy new year to you, my darling, and all the blessing in the world for the farmy. xx >
Happy New Year to all at the Farmy….I also thought of Daisy this morning as I put up my new calendar….but it is to the future that we must turn our face and leave the past in the shadows behind…
Not sure what will happen about the huts, but I feel absolutely certain that because it is you, something will turn up…
I never been to NZ..I will go get my passport and get my bag packed….don’t go without me!
And a Happy New Year to you and yours!
Happy New Year! The New Zealand farm sounds wonderful, can’t wait.
Thank you for taking us to New Zealand with you! It will be warm and green there, right? I could use some warm and green, right now!
warm and green and bounteous and there will be sheep and cows and pigs, we will go for a long walk every morning, I cannot wait!!.. c
Happy New Year C from the kids and I! xx
Happy, happy New Year! All the best to every creature
on the Farmy!
Went to sleep last night with the sounds of fireworks going off in the neighborhood all around us. Today, there will be pork (ham) and roasted veggies to bring in the new year. Happy New Year of 2015! And C, if you had done all those things last night into the wee hours, you would still be asleep!
Love to hear about other traditions/rituals. Happy New Year!
Hmmm pickled Herring, or Herring salad haven’t had it in ages. Happy New Year!
I like the IDEA of that wild New Year’s party …. but, like you, I was asleep well before midnight! 🙂 I did have some grapes, of the fermented juice form!! The New Zealand farm will be so interesting.
Oh my gosh, that reminds me that my grandmother used to read melted and dropped-in-water lead too! Oh the things I forget. Happy New Year Celi and much love to everyone over there from all of us over here. Fourteen more sleeps to go before the warm sunshine. Yay! Can’t wait. 😀
Happy New Year, C! May 2015 be full of adventure – starting with the trip to New Zealand!
For someone with no New Year traditions, you have the most wonderful non-traditions! Happy New Year!
Happy New Year !! I hope it is a wonderful year for you and I shall look forward to sharing your travels !!
Happy New Year to you and the farmy! A B1 bomber just flew over our house for the Rose Parade. It’s 37 degrees outside which is freezing for us! Hot chocolate and donuts sound really good right now, while we watch the parade on TV all day.
The happiest of New Years for you and all at the Farmy. Are you sure you hadn’t been at the whisky when you wrote this post? (just joking!). I too was thinking of all those, here and there, who left us last year. I hope the pig huts can be fetched soon.
Love,
ViV xox
There is hope Viv, evidently next week may be too cold for Our John to work.. so my plan may yet work!.. fingers crossed.. c
It may just work for you, I just watched the weather guy, 4-7″ of snow Sat. night & Sunday, temps dropping Sunday and a high of minus (MINUS!) 2 degrees F on Mon.! Brrrr. I don’t care what you do to them, I’m not eating those slimy little herrings!
Also wind chills in the minus 25 F range!
My eldest step daughter went to New Zealand upon graduating college. She did a farm stay there and says it’s the very best trip she ever took.
That sounds nasty, but our little seals on legs do very well so far don’t they.. little barrels of warm lardy bums.. c
The New Year arrived here with terribly cold weather 7* right now as I write this to you, the skies are a leaden grey with white frost hanging here and there…and it isn’t even pretty hoar frost–just frozen air. There is a sharp breeze making the wind chill at Zero. I’m dreaming of spring…wish I could sleep right through until March when farming starts again. BUT come the end of January the range cows will arrive. That is always a very good thing for me.
Happy New Year, My Friend in the middle of the breadbasket!
Linda
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Happy New Year to you and John! I will be happy to accompany you to New Zealand, to escape the bitter cold and snow that is now Minnesota. What should I pack?
It is so cold outside as of late and the idea of spending New Year’s Eve out was not appealing in the least, although I did enjoy the description of how you would run out singing and kissing your animals.
I also very much enjoy the Guinea Fowl picture. It’s still on my list of animals that will one day be on my farm and if we stick to our plan, that farm will take root this year!!!!
Happy New Year Cecilia!!!!!
Happy New Year Cinders! I too was exhausted after reading all of what you did in your sleep last night! Whew! Do you mean that pear cider was not even hard pear cider? I think I would of had to sneak in a little spirit! Would you ask our John…for all of us…if he would share his wonton recipe with us? They sound wonderful!
I’m getting my suitcase out and starting to pack for our trip to NZ….can’t wait. By the way, I think it was Aukland that was the first city in the world to ring in the New Year! 🙂
Wishing you a happy and prosperous 2015.
Happy New Year to you, Cecilia! I sure hope 2015 is a whole lot kinder to the Farmy than last year. So many losses, major ones too! Anyway, I too am looking forward to a trip to New Zealand, I guess, a very different sort of New Zealand trip than just a few months ago.
Love,
Equus
Happy New Year to you and yours Celi, i hope it is a very special year 😀
Asleep here too, although a lot earlier than many of you… For us, it has been a quiet New Year’s Day, although we did have family round for a strictly family style dinner (shepherds pie, brownie and ice cream). Once again, I shall stand in the back yard and wave at your plane as it passes overhead on its way to Aotearoa. And we’re having a little rain at last. No days-long downpours, as we should, but an hour here and there, which is better than nothing.
This was my first read of the New Year, Cecilia!! I often open your posts with a coffee in the morning…this one had me chuckling and sighing – such great fun and beautiful traditions you’ve shared here. Thank you, for being inspired and for likewise inspiring…you have a wonderful and uplifting life and presence. Happy New Year to you, (all – I love the ‘cast’)!! ♥
Happy New Year Cecilia. 🙂 I hope it’s a good one and oh, that New Zealand farm sounds gorgeous!
What a wonderful read. And, happy 2015!
You are a joy, Ceci xxx
The New Zealand farm sounds wonderful!
Happy New Year, My Darling Friend (note the capitals, it’s now your official title). 🙂 On New Year’s day, the foam on the top of my first coffee for the year was in the shape of a koala. Hopefully that means I’ll get to spend a whole lot of time up a tree this year, slightly stoned. Very much looking forward to that. And I thought of you on NY day, as we were drinking Black Russians with Polish vodka and this amazing new Aussie brewed cold drip coffee liqueur. You would have loved them! 🙂 Much love to you. xxx
Happy New Year!
I am usually quite tired before mudnight on New Year’s but this year we had a family over and might I mention that we both have small children, everyone was going strong still at 1.30 am…even the baby! He did however take a short nap at nine. I’m not sure if we were being unresponsible parents but by 2am everyone had left home and the children fell asleep very quickly! Happy New Year!
Sounds like a wonderful New Year’s Day! Can’t wait to see all the photos of your food and that beautiful farm!
Happy New Year miss c to all on the farmy!
Happy, Happy New Year, Ms. C!