Christmas Eve At Wildflower

Wildflower Farm Christmas Peppermint Bark.

Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day, are special times here at Wildflower for many reasons. Mostly, we do an obscene amount of cooking. We like to make some candy such as a nice peppermint bark, and almond brittle to go with our rosemary caramel and old fashioned sea foam dipped in milk chocolate. Then we make dinner, a traditional Finnish ham, green beans, some carrot casserole and Finnish fruit soup and corn bread, are often in attendance. Some may be more traditional for Christmas than others. We make what we want to eat. The desert cookies have already been made and sit waiting for us for an after dinner snack. The house smells in literal layers, of fir forest and our spruce Christmas tree, orange and warm spices, cooking almonds, ham in the oven, and cinnamon cornbread, they hang in the air together, layer upon layer. The Christmas music is very traditional and ancient folk and classical for the holiday helping to create a soothing peaceful mood. We turn it on to emphasize the Christmas peace declared in Finland in an unbroken tradition in Turku, for the last several hundred years. We think the peaceful soothing calm the music offers is a perfect compliment just following the declaration in Turku. The house is warm and cozy from the wood stoves doing their job. We hang suspended here in this peaceful gooey calm beautiful momentary calm in a state of holiday delight. While outside the sky is one shade of gradually darkening grey and the trees are another. On the ground the snow lies in a dusting of white. It almost looks as if I I was baking cookies and flowered the yard so I can roll them out. The animals are happy in some fresh bedding with good eats, and as the world greys and darkens outside we become a small light in the darkness that surrounds.

Almond Brittle Made here on the homestead for Christmas.

The world could be entirely empty for all we can tell beyond the warmth of our hearth, where we snack, and when not cooking engage in quiet activities like reading. Later we will watch A Christmas Carol, followed late in the evening at mid night by Christmas In Connecticut.

The dogs are enjoying the warmth of the wood stoves sleeping in it’s glow. Pikku, lays on her back on the sofa and seems to be smiling in her sleep. Her cone still around her head. She got fixed almost three days ago and is still on pain killers and is sedated with medication to keep her calm. Yoda, the ancient one lays on the floor by my feet, and Avery, sleeps not wanting to engage on the other sofa in the other room. Sometimes he likes his space. Dr. Farmer Moomin, is looking at his tablet in the peace and quite that surrounds us. The whole world for this moment has stopped turning leaving us this one beautiful glowing moment that we hang onto hard and as much as we can until it is over.

Yesterday, my dad and his friend stopped in. We shared cookies and some of our homemade candy, Christmas presents were exchanged. We got some nice ones and we are truly grateful. We are fairly comfortable here in our little house on our tiny homestead farm. We don’t need much. We don’t want for much… The basic comforts are enough and we are so grateful to have them now at such a difficult time for so very many who are losing homes, due to covid and as jobs and schools are in a state of chaos. We are most grateful for Wildflower Farm, who’s unending gift to us is the ability to rely upon it for so many of our needs through so much of the year. That is the gift of the Fairy Queen in the forest this holiday, another year here in which we are welcome and offered plenty if we just put in the work. I know from somewhere in the darkness of the forest she watches how we choose to live and is satisfied with what she sees and the news her emissaries the deer carry back to her. Once, humans lived in such harmony with nature. Today because most do not things have begun to unravel. We are not immune from that unraveling not even here. Not entirely anyway. Still, we get by and in this difficult climate of life these days with viruses, political scandals and crimes, ridiculously high rents, and unreliable jobs and health…. It is really such a gift to have this place where we can go and then cut off the world. Omicron, has entered the picture. We are not closing the doors to the B&B but the covid protocalls grow more extreme unfortunately until this wave passes. We no longer will be leaving the property till this terrible new variant is under control.

Still, somehow, the light shines here and the grey surrounding us turns to darkness while the candy hardens in the fridge and on the counter… I wish I could package this moment in this place and gift to everyone everywhere. Because everyone needs a safe comfortable place like Wildflower and to be part of a light in the darkness shimmering no matter what else darkens the world. If I could put this moment into boxes and cross the sky and world in a sleigh tonight, climbing with it down everyone’s chimney to place it in pristine condition under every tree… I would without hesitation.

I wouldn’t say we are jolly exactly, in this house that takes booze… But we are at peace. I am hopeful in this environment for a better tomorrow. I hope for a moment like this next year also and for so many years to come, either in this place or perhaps if I get even luckier than I already am, somewhere further out into nowhere, where I can make exactly this again on a grander scale… A girl can dream. It is Christmas eve, anyone not dreaming this evening is simply doing the holiday wrong. Weather your dream is of presents under the tree, a bigger better version of your little homestead farm, an end to child poverty and hunger, or the death of this miserable virus… No dream is wrong right now. We need all of these dreams more than ever. So dream the dreams that make your holiday beautiful Enchant the world by bringing those dreams as much to life as you can. And be the light as so many little lights across the world get drained by virus and tragedy. Stand your ground in the Christmas peace, with the fires lit, and whatever fills your heart with joy. Just as we do here. There is no wrong way to celebrate hope and light at the darkest point of the year.

Sea Foam Candy About To Get a Top Coat of Milk Chocolate.

Peppermint Bark

1 standard bag of semi sweet chocolate chips
1/2 a standard bag of white chocolate chips
1/2 cup of crushed candy cane

You will need a 9 by 13 pan, and a double boiler and or a special electric chocolate melting bowl. In the double boiler, boil some water, make sure the upper pot doesn’t touch the water in the lower pot so that the chocolate is being steam heated. Pour in the bag of semi sweet chocolate chips, stir and melt till liquid. Mix in 1/2 to 3/4s tea spoon of high potency peppermint flavoring oil. In another double boiler do the same to the half bag of white chocolate. Or what I do is the semi sweet in the double boiler and the white in an electric chocolate bowl. Mix the white chocolate as it heats, just like with the semi sweet. Pour the semi sweet into a pan lined with baking paper, and spread it. Pour down the white chocolate on top of it. Spread it on top of the still liquid dark chocolate marbling the two together as you spread. Then sprinkle the crushed candy cane bits over the whole thing and stick in the fridge for an hour. Pull out, break into pieces. It should stay good in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. Enjoy.

Old Style Sea Foam Candy Dipped in Milk Chocolate

We have enough candy to last us a year. If anyone wants any we may be giving it away.
Thank you for reading.
Happy Holidays
Amanda Of Wildflower Farm

Tags: airbnb, B&B, bed and breakfast, candy making, Christmas, DIY candy, DIY christmas candy, DIY lifestyle, farm, farm blog, farm candy making, farm kitchen, farm wife, farm wife blog, farmer, farming, farmstead, homemade candy, homemade christmas candy, homestead, homestead blog, homestead christmas candy, homestead farm, homestead wife, homestead wife blog, homesteader, homesteading, homesteading New England, housewife blog, Inn Keeper's christmas candy recipe, inn keeping, new england homesteading, old fashioned christmas candy, old fashioned living, peppermint bark recipe, self sufficiency homesteading, stay home wife, travel, wildflower farm, Wildflower Farm christmas candy, winter travel

About wildflowerfarm

Wildflower Farm, is a small New England homestead, B&B and AirBnB, in the Baystate. We came out here 7 years ago, when we returned from the better part of 10 years as peripatetic aristotelian nomads, for my husband's post docs. Upon our return, we had a plan. We had a lovely home. Everything was so clear. Then, I got sick. Things I used to eat all the time during our travels elsewhere in the world and even here before I left almost 10 years earlier made me ill. It took a couple trips to the ER and a trip to specialist... It became clear, something had changed in the way food is processed in this country since last I lived here. Some off label things was inevitably going to be my demise.

My husband and I looked around to see the clear path we were on, had exploded in front of us. We decided we had to create a new path for ourselves. We put children on hold. We found a small piece of land with a house we loved in a rural suburb in a right to farm area. I began researching how to do it ourselves. Grow it ourselves, make it ourselves, survive on our own as much as possible. We bought the property, and began plotting a new course. One that didn't involve off label chemicals. Closer to nature, with a lot more DIY, gardens, and animals for the products they provide. We created a life we loved though it hasn't always been easy and has of course come with compromise with each other, and even with ourselves.

Our family thought we had lost our minds. What were we doing leaving the city? We had no idea how hard this would be. They thought we would be back in 6 months. That was over 7 years ago, now. We have been making it work. They were not wrong, it isn't easy. But has anything worth doing ever been easy? And for us, avoiding as much store bought food as possible was simply necessary so I could live given how sick I was getting.

Then Covid hit.... We were lucky to have this place. It has allowed us a lot less need for public use territories which has kept us a lot safer and spared us much of the risk others face daily. This place, has given us a privilege through this of great meaning to us. To be of use in a difficult time. We have been able to help friends family and even strangers in need when things couldn't be found on store shelves. Or money was tight due to not working, rent being due and a child at home, or some other draining situation. We are so very grateful to have been able to not be helpless like so much of society through this miserable time. Our families, got used to it some time ago, us being out here. They made peace with it the day there was no bread and they had to ask me for some. Or when fresh vegies were rotten due to supply chain issues but they could find plenty in my garden.

Wildflower Farm, was a place I dreamed of. One of those sweet pastoral dreams a city dweller grows up knowing will never come true, that became unavoidable when I became ill. I never expected to get to do this. I never thought I had what it takes to make this work. I have learned pacing myself is important, compromise is critical, hard work never ends, burn out is real so breaks are just a necessary evil.

We are not fully self sufficient, but we work hard in that direction as we create a new path through life for ourselves, always reaching to do even more ourselves and to get closer to the ideal we envision. We are however far more self sufficient than many in this world. 7 years in, we continue to learn and grow in this homesteading lifestyle. We welcome comments and advice and ideas and questions.

We welcome visitors from all over to our home with strict covid policies in place. We spend our time learning to live all over again in a more environmental and sustainable way though even there we are far from perfect always learning and growing doing better as we know better.

This little homestead farm is a magical place named for the New England wildflowers that grow all around. A place where a physicist, watches the night sky on clear nights with the aide of mirror and glass, and a woman, works endlessly in the gardens, the kitchen, and a variety of projects to create and to keep a very unique life style running and functioning. Wildflower Farm, has become so much more than simply a piece of land we can grow a few vegetables on. The longer I spend here, the more alive the land seems, the more I learn about it's function and the more meaning it has. My place in the universe and the next steps on our new path become ever more clear.

We welcome you on this journey with us.

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Christmas Eve At Wildflower

Christmas Eve At Wildflower

About wildflowerfarm

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