Solitude

We need solitude. I think that’s why we live in the country. It’s not that we don’t like people; we love it when friends and family come to visit and we enjoy every minute of their stay whether it’s measured in hours, days, weeks or months. We enjoy the stimulating conversations, the music we make, the arts and crafts we create, the cooking we do together and even the work we accomplish together. Family and friends make our lives meaningful and rich.

But we also need the time when it’s just us and the animals, the fields and the forest, and no people for as far as the eye can see. Blizzards enforce our solitude. As long as we don’t have to be somewhere else when a storm rips through, we fill the wood box and the bird feeder, shut the sheep in the barn and hunker down, surviving quite well on the meat and vegetables in the freezers and the pantry shelves holding jam, honey, tomatoes, pickles, maple syrup, and Dave’s home brewed wine and beer. We do much more than survive as our driveway fills with snow and our only connections with the outside world are the telephone, the computer and two pair of snowshoes. That solitude enriches and nourishes our souls.