Winter Projects

January-February

Advent has vanished into the mist and Christmas has flown away.  Ash Wednesday is fast approaching - a months time will come to pass before we know it. In the last week, which was spent well below freezing, winter offered many of its most delicate and ephemeral gifts of pastel skies and glassy sheets of ice across Rock Run and the nearby lake. For anyone who has not heard the eerie and strange resonance of a rock skipping across a frozen lake, I highly recommend it!

As we take these moments to appreciate the snow and the cardinals darting across the yard, it is also necessary to look toward the future.

Two new rooms are being constructed - one in the south hermitage and one in the north hermitage for guests or new candidates. There is plenty of cosmetic work that also needs to be done - floors, walls, paint, and woodwork.

The chapel was the first room to have a new floor put in but still had a bit of an eyesore of a shelf in one corner. There are plans for constructing a more functional altar and tabernacle as well. A plaster Infant of Prague statue received a new Carmelite habit.

March

Lent has arrived and outside the snowdrops are waking up and forming patches of delicate green and white forms to break up the greys and browns of the winter earth. Our winter projects are becoming spring projects. Thing take some time with rules and a horarium, seminary, and other work, rest, and but sure enough, everything gets done.

"Big" and "little" brown bats are common - they roost on the back porch and under peeling bark. This bat was a little cold and confused, but eventually came out of his torpor and flew away.

This year's tomatoes are just starting to come up in their pots positioned in a cozy spot near a bathroom radiator.