New Year 2023

New year, another set of 365 days, 12 months and 52 weeks in our counting of time. Years keep repeating, always the same, always the different. Four seasons; winter, spring, summer and fall (up here I split winter into two more) come and go every year with similarities, but enough varieties that I can refer back to them as… this winter when temperatures dropped down to -50C, or this Midsummer that was was as cold as Christmas Eve (near 0C). There was a summer when the lake was sweet and warm for weeks or the summer when the mosquitoes vanished. Oh, that happened in that exceptionally cold winter, we can say but which year was it? Was it 1998 or 1999. Summer of 2010 was truly hot, I remember the year, because our little Ruusu was born that summer. 

We will all remember this year. We all have a collective memento, but we all have small individual memories too, and let’s not forget them or let them be overcast with the big, sad one. 

Farewell 2022!

At the threshold of the New Year, I would love to take a peak into the future. How will the coming year look like? Let’s have a look!

January and February will be cold, quiet months, with lots of wood burning and snow shoveling, walking the dogs and admiring the cat’s ability to hibernate. He wants me to open the door for him once every day, and there he stands in front of the open air, smells the bitter, sharp low temperatures and turns his back to the winter. He climbs on top of the brick oven and curls into another deep cat sleep, he snores, I can tell if he is on top, because the sleep up there is so sound. He has his very own safe haven. 

Come March and the winds pick up, instead of whipping from the north (the wind from the Arctic Ocean is like a whiplash), it brings greetings from the south and the west, but these greetings always arrive with loads of new snow. I keep shoveling and shoveling. I brush the steps when I take the dogs out in the evening right before the bed time, just to wake up in the morning for more shoveling. The sun peaks occasionally through the heavy snowfilled clouds but by the end of March the light is here. It is everywhere, the new, fresh snow is glittering. April is cruel, but I can take that; there is the promise of spring - occasionally the skies dump more snow, but in April the new snow melts the old ice. We know that the winter has to give in, rather sooner than later but April will take its time. The temperature is still low and thus the winds feel chilly. 

Then FINALLY! May, the glorious May, my favorite month. The snow is going fast, the birds are coming back, the ice starts cracking and my blue lake returns. May is splendid, full of wonder, full of new, full of bird song. You can almost hear the ground breaking as the new sprouts push their way up up towards the sky.

June, Summer Solstice, Midsummer and we are at the turning point again… Do I count the year from summer to summer or from winter solstice to winter solstice, because the turning points in spring and fall are less dramatic to me. 

Of this peak into the future I can be fairly sure; following nature take its course, the similar and the familiar things happen each year, provide so much comfort and security. Of course there are days when nature might put up a more spectacular show and provide some uncertainty and heartbeat, but mostly it is comforting to follow. After the rain, the sun will shine. After the winter, the summer will come. After the storm, there is the calm. And as been said before, even after the darkest night, the dawn will break.

That is all we know. And that quite frankly, is enough to know of the future. 

Be well, and be brave, good bye 2022 and let’s ring in the New Year 2023!

Wool with you,

Lene

PS. For the bunny’s body, I more or less followed Party Amigurumi pattern by Aquariwool (Etsy Shop), but the rest is my own doing.