Living in Oregon for 13 years, I almost forgot what four seasons really felt like. True, we had a colder, rainier winter, and certainly the dry heat of summer was a marked change, but somehow the seasons seemed to melt and blend into one another, and not entirely aligned with the calendar.  On the other hand, our time in Missouri has truly been a lesson in seasonality.  Always one to celebrate the turn of the seasons, I have fresh appreciation for the cycle of the seasons after living outdoors for an entire summer and essentially living indoors for the winter. Summer on our homestead was all about the pond: swimming in the pond several times a day, retrieving water from the pond to … [Read more...]