OooOOoooo! Listen to This!

a new wassail song & cider syrup recipe

Joyous Wassail, Friends!

As we ski through the orchard and forests around the farm, we’re singing wassail, that old English tradition and word translating roughly:

to health!

good health!

health to all!

New days, new seeds, new laws, new poems…

…and hooray for new songs!

All the wassail songs I’ve loved all my life are hundreds of years old, which is some deep magic to be sure, yet when our dear friend Steven two days ago sent us a sparkling new song, Fruition Wassail, I wept for the wonder of what becomes beloved tradition beginning with these: the tiniest of seeds and melodies, welcoming such possibility.

Here is Steven singing Fruition Wassail, with lyrics (and so much more!) on the blog:

And here’s Matthew singing wassail to the hemlocks as we ski:

If you’d love to sing this and so many more wassail songs with Steven (and us all!) in person, join us Saturday, December 7th for our annual:

Wassail Celebration!

honoring orchards, sipping cider, making cider syrup & gifting tree kin

Saturday, December 7th 10 to 4 pm | free | all are welcome 💛

Join us sipping hot cider and singing as we celebrate our thriving Community Orchard, as much yours as ours and here for future generations. Bring a gallon ​(or more!) of sweet cider​ (as you’re inspired and able) to add to our maple syrup evaporator: The fire will be crackling and we’ll make cider syrup to send everyone home with! We’d love to send you home with deliciously disease-resistant bareroot apple and chestnut trees, too.

And it’s true, cider syrup is as scrumptious as it looks and sounds! So many people asked for the recipe, so we’ve added it to the blog above. It’s as simple as boiling down sweet cider, reducing heat and keeping a close eye as it thickens, with waffles at the ready:

Here’s our schedule!

Arrive & depart anytime, though come right at 2 to celebrate and bring trees home:

10 am: help compost and mulch trees, readying our orchard for winter; we’ll get the fire crackling and cider steaming at this time, too!

12:30: farm tour as we sip hot cider! (come taste the sweetness of winter spinach and sample the other winter greens thriving on the farm)

1 pm: Wassail! We’ll celebrate with hot cider, song, reflection & merry-making!

2 pm: we’ll share several hundred deliciously disease-resistant apple trees (the semi-dwarf varieties here) as well as chinese chestnuts, sending them home with everyone ready to plant more trees for the world to come. ​If you’d love more insight on tree planting, we made you quite a feast of everything we’ve learned:

What to Bring:

⭐ a gallon ​(or more!) of sweet cider​ (as you’re inspired and able) for hot cider and cider syrup

⭐ a mug for hot cider​

⭐ a pint jar to bring home cider syrup

⭐ if you’d love to bring bareroot apple or chinese chestnut trees home to plant, bring a shovel and a large plastic garbage bag with ~2 gallons of moist fall leaves (most trees are less than 4’ tall and up to 5 trees fit in each garbage bag) (please bring home as many as you have loving homes for, don’t be shy)

⭐ dress cozy to enjoy our winter wonderland together!

We look so forward to sharing these young trees, so generously sharing their lives with us all, filling our lungs, hearts and communities with life, resilience and abundance for generations to come:

And did you know?

We've planted 100+ fruit and nut trees for you and for us all!

And Friends, we have no interest in selling any of this abundance: 

There is a deeper hunger we would nourish together.

We are honored to tend these trees and this land in community, laughing & learning together as we go, sharing the joys and trials of the seasons, so when we harvest and share the fruit, it’s that much sweeter 🍐

Sharing in the work, sharing in the abundance: Among other things, perhaps this is what trees and seeds have been teaching us for 400 million years and counting.

If you'd love to say thank you, we love you and know:

~ your curious, caring presence in body and / or spirit is the greatest gift 

~ come Saturday, December 7th at 10 to help ready our orchard for winter before the big wassail celebration

~ stay tuned & join our seed gifting gatherings throughout the northeast this winter

~ what are your gifts that you have to share with the world? sharing them with everyone in your life is thanking us too, it’s true 💛 

~ we share our relational, material & financial needs here, if you’d love to thank us more directly

~ finally, an invitation to

delight in the magic of the world!

do you see the crows above the vineyard?

Wassail, Friends!

As we ski through the orchard, vineyards and forests around the farm, we’re singing wassail, that old English tradition and word translating roughly:

to health!

good health!

health to all!

and we sing this to you, whoever you are, wherever you are, no matter how broken your heart or soaring your spirit. Your cup is our cup. Your heart our heart. And together we…

Sow Seeds & Sing Songs,

and the Many Dreams of Fruition

ps

If you’ve been forwarded this email and would love to subscribe, please do & hope to see you here on the farm one day, too!

pps

As we prepare to gather in community, honoring the sweetness that is also dormancy and death that is our orchard, our lives and our world, we are so grateful for this poem and invitation:

And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart,

'Your seeds shall live in my body,

And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart,

And your fragrance shall be my breath,

And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons.'

~ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet