Balsamic Moon in Sagittarius | A Solstice Letter

Winters in Idaho do offer the much needed time to take a pause and enjoy the solitude... when we are not chopping wood and plowing snow that is. Living remotely in this quiet place gifts us with a more attuned balance with nature. The visible moon in the vastness of the starry skies, the spring and autumn migration of birds, the intense heat of high summers and the long hours of darkness in the winter time, all speak to the rhythms we embrace and follow.

For those of you who don't know our back story, I would love to share a bit of ancient history. Rick and I met in Moscow, Idaho in 1976. Rick was finishing a degree in wildlife and fishery biology, and I was running away from home. I fell in love with his sweet and gentle nature, and an added bonus, he was a great dancer. On dates we would drive out into the country and take long walks into the woods. My forester knew the names of all the grasses and trees and bird species, it was a love of nature that we shared. We both dreamed of finding an old homestead and living in the country, but it would take another 42 years to see that dream realized.

Rick is a craftsman, an artist, a builder of dreams. I am an alchemist, an artist and a nurturing soul. While we found forestry was a passion, it didn't pay the bills. We ended up moving to Seattle and raising our family there, Seattle was a lovely place in those early days, and it offered our family many opportunities to grow and hone our skills.

After 30+ years in Seattle we grew disenchanted by the city life and we longed to get back to rural living. We drew up a wish list of all the attributes to a property that would feel like home. Fertile land, kind neighbors, starry skies, water views, wildlife and trees... We searched all over the Pacific Northwest, but the area was too expensive for us and the best land had been scooped up long ago. Still, I would gaze at my list and picture it in my mind, almost everyday.

I got up one morning in early summer 2018 and opened my computer. Rick had sent an email of an aerial view from a real estate listing, with the caption, "What about this place?" When I opened it up to see this beautiful green acreage with a very large body of water and trees everywhere I was stunned. I was even more shocked to see that the property was in North Idaho.

We had found our homestead! It has been an enormous amount of work to restore this 1902 homestead and get it to the place where we can now share it with all of you. This place with its wildness and its quiet, this place where hundreds of birds nest and hatch and sing the sun up and down, and this place with the visible milky way overhead, is our Hunter Moon Homestead.

We hope you will venture our way in 2023 and let us gift you with some of our nurturing love. And we want to tell you all how much we love and appreciate you. From our family here to your families wherever you are, have a blessed and peace filled Holiday.