I have always been a summertime kinda girl, but although I love the sun on my face and my bare feet in the grass I would never trade in our four seasons. We live in a temperate Canadian climate here, which means fresh spring times, hot summer days, long autumns, and moderate winters.
It’s a nearly perfect climate. Still, it’s easy to get antsy in January and February and forget it’s a much needed rest from the the business of the other seasons.
Nonetheless, there’s something peaceful about the earth sleeping beneath its layer of snow, as if it also needs a time of rest. For the rest of us, it’s a chance to read the books we’ve been saving, go snowboarding/snowshoeing/sledding, take holidays, host game nights, and peruse seed catalogs at length. That snow will melt away soon enough, revealing refreshed soil for all the little seedlings.
Spring is not that far away. I love the smell of the damp earth and the sound of birds in the morning. I could drink in the ten thousand vibrant shades of green, but it does bring work. With June comes strawberries, one of the first crops to binge on savor, harvest, and madly preserve so we can have the bright flavor all winter. The explosions of produce don’t subside until November.
It’s difficult to conceive of living without seasons. As farmers, we’re very much in touch with the weather, with the changes to the earth, and with the effects that both have on nature. Without the changing seasons and lengthening days it would be hard to regulate our time to plant and our time to harvest. Nothing would make sense, which is why homesteaders need seasons.
There is even a passage of the old testament that I have always thought was beautiful (Ecclesiastes 3). It’s little ancient wisdom to remind us that winter will not last forever and everything has it’s place.
To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to gain, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
What is your favorite season? Would you prolong it if you could?