I wake up early, needing to catch the light that seems to ache as it breaks out of the darkness. I eat a bowl of oatmeal, with cinnamon apples and peanut butter. Sometimes I stretch, or run, or read, but mostly I think, whoa, time off.

For the first winter in recent history I am not working outside (yes, yes, yes!). My inside job is a part-time gig, making my days mostly my own. To fritter or fill. Everything is reversed in this new world of so.much.time. This whole farming calendar based-life can seem like a high-speed chase (March-August), that you inevitably escape from (sometime in October/November), but only at the edge of a cliff which you have no choice but to descend into. A cavern filled with all the possibilities post-poned during the frantic, time-sensitive period of seed! plant! cultivate! harvest! wash! pack! distribute! do it all again! do it all once!.

Ah, the long awaited “winter projects”. Activities dreamt up sometime between the hundredth and thousandth time cutting arugula. Oh, the books I shall read. The snacks I will make. And, mostly importantly, the better plans I’ll make so that next year, next year won’t be such a race. Sleeping, farming, swimming, and collecting plants for dyeing will all synchronize as easily as spreadsheets turn an April sowing of carrots into a June harvest.

What if tomatoes grew like kale? Not just in the rush of summer, but steadily throughout the season. Then there’d be time to get the trellising done properly. To beat out the weeds. To not just to have a fat BLT, but to can pasta sauce, to appreciate tomato soup in the real chill of winter, and to use a full day to create something elaborate, like puff pastry tarts with tomatoes and goat cheese? To do and to make. To sit and to enjoy.

But, picking pounds and pounds of tomatoes everyday?

Balance. That’s a word that buzzes around without sticking to the reality of living. Sometimes it’s hot and buggy and tiredness runs deeper than a catnap will erase. But, there’s a momentum to it, and making a blueberry crisp for a late-night bbq before waking up at three to go to market the next morning happens. Other times, it’s a wide-open, late December gray day and I’m on the couch, wondering, will I actually get my laundry done today or will it sit, just like me, the cats, and the pile of snow outside.

I may not have fresh tomatoes on every counter, in lily crates on the floor, storing in my fridge, but I can organize the kitchen and go to the library to take out cookbooks filled with fantasy tomato salads. Months from now, when the tornado hits, I’ll look forward to this place of quiet and slow-going. Somewhere inbetween busy and slow, constant and erratic, the year comes and goes and comes again. Here’s a short list of some happenings that happened this past year and I’d be tickled if they happened in the next one.

*Biking to work! Again. One of the biggest challenges moving from urban to rural life has been the lessening of bike riding. Moving to a house that was a mostly flat and short bike ride to the farm changed everyday for the better. The wind and sun (sometimes rain) on my face pushed me out of sleepiness into readiness for work in the morning and seperated me from work in the afternoon. Always & forever, please?

*Visiting the best small town, Marshall, North Carolina. The first time I went to Marshall was an accident. We’d been hiking and were hungry and where better to stop for a picnic than a small mountain town with a co-op, train tracks and a river? How about a small mountain town with artist studios in a former school on an island? A small mountain town where Smoke Signals Bakery, a dream project of wood-fired baking, farming, snack events and workshops is based? This is the place. I returned there late fall for a pie making workshop at Smoke Signals. It was glorious. Of course the pie we made was the best, but of course it was really about people and togetherness and snacks. Maybe we should all just move to the mountains of Western North Carolina to make stuff, grow food and eat snacks?

*Eating Dan Roberts’ pizza. This was years in the making, but man was it worth the wait. I farmed with Dan a few years ago and pizza was his jam. He made pies at Apizza Scholls before farming, and afterwards kept tinkering and thinking and talking about pizza, all just to taunt me as far as I can tell. (To his credit, it is difficult to make pizza for someone who lives in a different state from you.) It is damn good. When he opens his shop, I’ll be there everyday eating Mama Lil’s pickled pepper and sausage pizza. Until then, I will go to Tinder Hearth one of these days. I live in Maine. It’s a wood-fired pizza barn party. Must happen.

*Going to the Dave Rawlings Machine concert. This was the musical happening that tore into my life. I can’t wrap my head around it all still. Somehow Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch, forces unto themselves, expanded their touring band to include Paul Kowert, Willie Watson and John.Paul.Jones. John Paul Jones! No one could stop smiling. I suggest spending some time on youtube watching videos of this tour. Epic. Alternate with Willie Watson’s solo videos. Epic epic.

*Walking in the woods in Awendaw, South Carolina. I may have been limited in my pinecone collecting, but meandering along the low-slung boardwalk through the swampy marsh and the longleaf pine tree forest in Awendaw was the walk for me. It could’ve been the waning late winter afternoon light that made everything russet and warm. But likely it was the company of two dear ladies who traveled alongside me in search of snacks + trees + America all the yearlong. We spent a good amount of time chasing nuggets of happiness, despite everything that is messed up, and in those woods I think we had it. Definitely later that evening at Awendaw Green, a weekly outdoor barn jam, we found it. A place where anyone and everyone can sit together (around garbage can fires if it’s winter), listen to local acts and nationally known music, eat picnics and meet Wade. A South Carolinian who runs the show, gets starry-eyed when talking about his fishing boat, and will share his moonshine. America, hello.

*Eating bread at Boulted Bread in Raleigh. More and more breads are being made with locally grown and milled grains. This is the way! There is something to be said for the flavor of bread made from fresh, fresh flour. And that something is, keep on keeping on. It is good. This may be a good time to note, I have an extended wish list of future snacking & going. If you’re interested in knowing more, or accompanying me in adventures, let’s talk. For starters, if anyone wants to go to Scotland and eat cake at Lovecrumbs, I’m free.

*My friends are getting married! It’s the best! Thank you for sharing love and for all the best snacking and outdoor boogie-ing. Moments sneak into life, and I am happy that it is all happening.

There are pictures! They are coming. Nora P, some help please? And some chilaquiles?