Week 30 of 2024 - End of Yule and Early Spring
Spring quickening and a flurry of snow
Early Spring on Wheel & Cross:
This week marked the end of our Yule season. After a week of cold and wet weather, Monday dawned clear and calm. The boys were home for the usual pupil-free day at the start of a new school term. Oscar and I spent the morning taking down and packing up the Yule decorations. The orange slice decorations were put away for Imbolc and the fir boughs and oak leaves were taken outside to be burnt later in the evening.
The afternoon was spent finishing the orchard pruning and chopping up the branches while the boys played together with the dogs in the dirt pile, under a blue sky, warm sun and cool breeze. Later in the evening, after dinner and as the full moon rose over Gibraltar Hill the boys and I headed outside to wassail the orchard trees. A gift of mulled wine-dipped bread was placed in the branch of each orchard tree, for the birds. Each tree was splashed with the warm mulled wine and we cheered ‘wassail’. Then we lit the Yule boughs in the fire pit and went inside to finish our evening.
This week was filled with signs of the spring quickening. The dwarf iris has bloomed under our mulberry tree, the dwarf jonquils have started to flower, bulbs are coming up everywhere and snow-drops are beginning to blossom. The maples look like they are blossoming though their flowers are small and subdued and the hazel trees have a few catkins fluttering in their topmost branches.
This morning I woke to a flurry of snow, it didn’t last long and the snow didn’t settle, but it was beautiful and the rest of the day was sunny, though the wind was fairly stiff. We were visited by a happy family of superb fairy-wrens after the skies cleared. Two males and a gaggle of females flitted between the rose vines, the rosemary bush and the mulberry tree. Spring is beginning.
To catch up on the joys of the winter season this year in my household and to learn about seasonal history, traditions, folklore and customs, visit these Wheel & Cross episodes:
June
1 June - Episode 2: Holle’s Day and the First Day of Winter (posted 30 May)
6 June - Episode 3: Echoes of the Ice Age - Winter Solstice and Mother’s Night
13 June - Episode 4: The Origins of Christmas
27 June - Episode 6: Winter Feast