Going Green in Winter.

November rains fall at night and soon winter will have turned them to snow. The last of the winter planting has been done in the fields and the few maple leaves who stubbornly attempt to hold onto their mother are sent aloft by the biting winds. The nights come early and grow longer and colder, sending us inside for warmth and shelter. The months ahead will be filled with their own serene and desolate beauty, punctuated by the falling snow as it casts its silent spell upon the world, but for a farmer, an explorer, an environmentalist and a lover of life, the winter brings challenges. When work in the gardens is done for the year and the plants die away, I feel an emptiness. I need to replace it by doing different things that are important to me like focusing on other aspects of sustainable living. So, I will be doing a small series of posts over the next couple weeks talking about a few of those sustainable living practices, such as food preservation, kombucha brewing, growing sprouts, some highlights of a season of organic farming, composting/vermiculture and possibly more. There are so many small steps we can take in the way towards living a more sustainable life that are possible even in the dead of winter. It's hard to imagine how one can "Go Green" in the season when all the green is gone, but we can and will, so I'm looking forward to sharing a few of them with you.