As I write this entry, it is October 22nd, 2024, at 8:00 a.m. The current temperature outside is 50°, and today’s forecast calls for clear skies with an expected high temperature of 75°. What the bloody hell?
Of course, seasoned Northeasterner that I am, I understand this is simply what we lovingly refer to (if it’s even politically correct to say out loud anymore) as Indian summer. The harvests are effectively complete, canning is furiously taking place in kitchens all around, and there are really only a few things left to do.
Once all the leaves have been evicted from their trees, the yard mowed and raked, and all the yard tools put up, we bust out the thermals (and the hats, gloves, and heavy coats), hunker down under thick blankets and heavy comforters, and hide as best we can from everything going on outside.
This year? The winter season that begins 2 months from today? Yeah… I’m not doing that this year.
We had our first Frost about 10 days ago, and I got to thinking that maybe we’re looking at this winter thing the wrong way. I mean… The days are shorter, the nights are longer, and it’s pretty effing cold up here in the Northeast, most especially during the first two months after the winter solstice, but I said to myself, “Self? Quit being a baby.”
I did a little research and, from Google’s AI Search bot: “The hibernal solstice, also known as the winter solstice, is the day when the Earth’s poles reach their maximum tilt away from the sun. It occurs twice a year, once in each hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice happens around December 21 or 22. ”
I ain’t going to lie… I had never come across the word hibernal before, and this discovery punched me in the forehead; I said to myself, “Hey! I know what let’s do! Let’s do a Hermit’s Winter Journal, but rather than whining and complaining about all the discomfort of this period of Nature’s death and rebirth, I think it’s high time someone celebrates and embraces the beauty and wonder of what nature brings us during her shortest days and longest nights and coldest temperatures.
Ever the unwashed poet, “Hibernal Journal” seems like a good name for what I will call the entries I share in this space over the next few cold months, starting with a celebration of the Winter Solstice on December 22nd. It seems to me that Nature deserves every bit as much of the love she gets for Spring, Summer, and Fall that she is deprived of despite all the amazing things she does in the winter, even though she is so easily hated for the inconvenience and discomfort her Winter work suffers us to endure. Winter deserves more love than that, and I mean to give her some.
I have plenty of thermals, plenty of blankets, and a healthy pile of comforters. But better than all that, I have the one greatest gift I could ask for in order to get up close and personal with her, listen to her, and inspect her work, and her name is Miss Alice. She is built specifically for this project, and the gloriously frigid glow of Nature’s winter grandeur is heading our way. Alice and I will take notes (and pictures) and take y’all with us on our journey through the northeastern Winter Wonderland.
