Today’s post comes from littlejailbird.

Fifty years ago, an author/illustrator named Leo Lionni had a picture book published, titled Frederick. A field mouse,  Frederick is part of a family who is preparing for winter. Everyone gathers corn and nuts and wheat and straw – that is, everyone except Frederick. Frederick prepares for winter in a different way. He gathers three things for winter: sun rays, words, and colors.

I live on a city street that seems especially bleak in the winter. Most of the houses are shades of tan,beige, or gray. Snow is pretty, but a few days after it falls, it is an ugly gray, getting darker as the winter wears on, until it is charcoal-colored. Most of the boulevard trees are oak trees and the leaves that cling to the branches are a dull brown.

It is then that I wish for the third thing that Frederick gathered for winter: Color.

While the other mice are working at storing up food for the winter, Frederick stares at the meadow. When the other mice inquire what he is doing, he replies that he is gathering colors because winter is gray.

One day last November, I was already feeling the lack of color. It was a gray day after many gray days and I went in search of color and patterns outside. I found what I was looking for and I am trying to keep those colors stored up inside me for when I especially need them.

Do you do anything to make winter a happy season?

Today’s post comes from Verily Sherrilee

Last week I decided to go to the gym on my way to work. To save time I threw on shorts and a t-shirt and packed my work clothes into my gym bag, slipped on my Birkenstock sandals and headed out. I needed to do a quick stop at the library to return a book before it went overdue; luckily the library is right on my way.

As I walked from the car to the library drop box, another woman pulled up behind me and got out to return her book. She had on a hat, jacket, gloves, long pants, shoes and socks. And there I was in my shorts, t-shirt and sandals. That’s when I realized that I have Minnesota’s weather in my blood.

I did chose Minneapolis based partly on the weather here. As a child, my family spent some of each summer and winter vacation in northern Wisconsin. Winter up here compared to winter in my home town is like those proverbial apples and oranges; I knew even as a 10-year old that I preferred cold and snow to mostly cold and mostly rainy. At the end of high school, I only looked at colleges in Wisconsin and Minnesota and after my wasband finished graduate school, we headed straight for Minneapolis without looking back.

I’ve been here ever since.

This year we’ve had such a nice protracted autumn that I still haven’t put away my summer clothing or brought out any of my long-sleeved items. I’m still wearing my Birkenstocks every day. A couple of days ago a friend of mind looked at my feet and said “Toes `til it snows?” My official new motto.

How to YOU prepare for the winter?

Today’s post comes from Verily Sherrilee

As most of you already know, I love my yard and my gardens. My long-range plan (no grass, all flowers) is coming to fruition in the front and in the back I’m enjoying planting in my bales and along edges until I’m out of dogs.

But as much as I love gardening in the spring and throughout the summer, I just run out of gardening steam in the fall. Right about the time the grass stops growing is when I quit wanting to garden. I always say I’m going to plant some more bulbs or move this patch of lilies to another spot or some other fall garden activity, but it never happens.  I only go out and finally bring in the hoses and do some yard clean up when the weather gets below freezing at night on a regular basis.  I even outsource the leaf raking to the Young Adult (for dog-sitting time).

Occasionally I’ll be forced into action. Last year before tim moved I ended up with about 18 big hostas from his yard. When I got home from his place, I took my gloves and shovel out immediately without even going in the house.  Got everything transplanted within a half hour because I was worried that if I went in the house and sat down I might not go back out. Same with items I got from Edith a couple of weeks ago.  But that’s the limit of my fall gardening energy.

So my autumn yard looks like a brown and rust version of my summer garden and my bales are breaking down. Every year I try to lengthen my “caring season” but so far I haven’t found a motivation that keeps me really engaged past the middle of September!

What makes you drag your feet?