Yesterday was magic--we walked along a cold beach, frozen drifts poised over the incoming tide like gargoyles. I ground some red wheat berries for bread, and Leslie put together bean soup from scratch.

My brother unexpectedly called, and we joined his clan for dinner, carrying the pot of hot soup on a pine plank on my lap on the short drive over. (Hi, Karlyn!)

This morning the bay waters moved sluggishly, debating whether to solidify or stay liquid as a thick fog rolled in. We saw a couple of birds we did not recognize, likely Arctic visitors. A few live oysters were tossed on the beach, bumped off the jetties by the ice floes. I debated eating one, but figured the chilled gulls needed it more than I did.

I have just about finished Last Child in the Woods, an important book, and one I will have much more to say later.

For now, though, know this much (and I am not saying this is such a bad thing). If children reconnected with the world, if all of us got to spend an hour or two a day at the edge of wildness, or pick dried bread dough off our wrists, or just sit with good, cheap, food made with our hands, shared with those we love, well, the economy as we know it would collapse.

It's collapsing anyway.

Lesson plans faded from my thoughts as a short walk turned into a couple of miles along the winter beach.

Nothing I can show my lambs indoors can compare. I need to get them outside again.