The sun on the remaining snow and the completely frozen over falls on 2/8/26.

Dear Friends,

Happy Year of the Fire-Horse Everyone!

Contrary as it might sound to say so, the world has much to celebrate right now. (I am not going to say a thing about the “state of the world” this time, but if you do want a thoughtful, well-researched and historically-based perspective that both faces all this stuff head-on and also leaves a little room for hope and optimism, read Heather Cox Richardson’s daily newsletter. If you don’t already follow her work she is a national treasure!). Within one week, we have Valentine’s day, the Lunar New Year (it is the year of the Fire Horse!), Mardi Gras, and Ramadan. That is a huge percentage of the world celebrating at the same time, mostly today (for me, as I am writing this), February 17th. None of these traditions are a big part of my cultural history, but my family has begun to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Yuejiao, who also goes by Heather, has brought a lot of lovely things into our family since marrying my brother Joe, but we are all especially partial to her incredible cooking of Yunnan cuisine. We celebrated the year of the horse a little belatedly with a family dinner that included lotus root, rice noodles, eggplant and other deliciously spiced delicacies. Regardless, I like this timing for a new year celebration… I really think it makes more sense for the new year to start closer to the start of spring, during these moments where you can just begin to feel it coming. My sweetie Tim and I aren’t much for Valentine’s day, but we got to spend a low-key day together, which is always romantic, and we celebrated with some dark chocolate brownies with almonds and walnuts (because ultimately, Valentine’s day is actually about chocolate!). What made the day extra special though, was the sunshine and temperatures! We went on a walk together through slushy, slippery, melting snow and even though I wore two sweatshirts instead of my coat, I was so warm I had to remove the outer sweatshirt halfway through our walk. The cold spell has broken, and the first taste of spring was in the air! Wow, what a feeling, after so many weeks of sub-zero and single digit temperatures. The days are noticeably longer too, and the sun is climbing higher in the sky.

There is something so powerful about experiencing the seasons, the transitions, the contrast. The dark and the cold brings so many challenges. The past month, my immediate circle has experienced calamities from the dreadful (my mom fell on the ice and fractured her wrist) to the extremely inconvenient (Tim’s cabin had frozen drain pipes, so no sinks or showers there for weeks, and a car slid into his parked car and caused considerable damage) to the minor inconveniences of clearing snow and my car not starting because of a frozen battery, and finally simply the energy requirements keeping the indoors marginally comfortable. We luckily escaped any problematic fallen trees or power outages during the big storm (we got about 15 inches of snow) but, as the above list tells you, this storm and harsh cold spell did not leave us unscathed. And yet! My god was it beautiful too. The magnificent snowfall and the long cold spell after meant the snow stayed, and stayed lovely and skiable, for so long. Tim and I got to enjoy gearing up and stepping out of my house and into our skis and exploring all the trails, seeing sunrises and sunsets and moonrises from the forests and fields and lake. Working up a hearty sweat in single digit temperatures. I am happy for the coming of spring, but I appreciated the spell of genuine winter too. (I could really have done without this latest snowstorm though! I wrote all this before it happened but now am shoveling so much heavy wet snow… I swear this is more total precipitation than the last big storm because it is so much denser. )

This Lunar New Year is all about the shedding of the snake skin (introspection, healing, and releasing the past) and welcoming the fire-horse (bold, action-oriented, and passionate growth). Regardless of what you believe, that is a beautiful sentiment to carry into this year. 2026 will be a big year for me, as we finish this house and I start this new business, and I celebrate my 5th year with this property and the 4th decade of my life. Big things ahead. I hope to celebrate them with you. I am stubbornly keeping my optimism for the future alive.

This month I am going to share about some electrical projects (I have recently learned how to do some of the work myself!) and about Fishers, a very cool and much maligned predator in the weasel family that looks like a huge mink or a smallish wolverine.

All of my love,

Elody

P.S. VIDEOS: Here are videos of the incredible frozen waterfalls on FB and Insta, and videos of my skiing adventures with Tim on FB and Insta.

Above: Incredible natural ice formations on 2/1/26 & 2/5/26. Below: Lunar New Year Feast.

Above: The very chandelier-dense entry area!

Feature Project: Electricity!

In honor of NOT losing power during the snowstorm, let’s talk about Electricity. I will just roll right into the “Superhero of the month” acknowledgement here and give a shout out to Kenny Lloyd, our family friend whom I have previously introduced here. He has done most of the electrical work, including roughing in the electrical for most of the house by himself. He has lots of experience doing electrical work, but had never done an entire house new build before. The experience both challenged him and spoiled him for going back to rewiring or adding electrical to old houses that sometimes don’t have stud walls! Tim also pitched in on wiring the house when he could, as he is also a competent electrician, and now that the only electrical work to be done is occasionally wiring a light fixture in, a lot of the work has fallen on him. Until… drumroll please… I finally got up the courage to learn how to wire lights myself. All I have to say now is… Why didn’t I start earlier? Once learned, I am perfectly capable of it. It is fidgety finicky work that has its challenges (I have sliced open a finger on the sharp metal edge of a junction box twice now), and there will still be many things I need help with since I only learned how to do one thing. But! That one thing I can do very well, so I can totally wire and install an LED disc light with a junction box safely and successfully! If anyone needs a tutorial just let me know, if I can do it you can too! So that is one less thing I need to ask help for. Next up I think I want to learn to wire in “regular” lights? We will see.

The coolest project within this “electrical work” theme that I will spotlight here is my entry area chandeliers. I have a small but very high-ceilinged entry space on my side of the house, and I had a wild idea to fill that vertical space with a whole variety of cool hanging lights and chandeliers, like stepping into a shop in Morocco or Venice (or a “boho” vintage shop, or any store with light fixtures). I did not have the budget to get exactly the kinds of lights from my imagination, but my mom gifted me a beautiful crystal chandelier she found at a vintage shop and I found some cool vintage stained glass pieces very inexpensively off of Facebook Marketplace, and got a few other glass lights new on sale. The vintage lights had to be rewired and extended to hang lower (I especially wanted the crystal chandelier to hang low enough to catch sunlight and send rainbows throughout the room) and the ceiling is VERY high, so we had to do it while we still had scaffolding up and it was a real challenge to get them up, but I think the results are magnificent. And yes, I do get rainbows, especially in the winter afternoons!

TIMELAPSE VIDEOS: I have a great video compilation of the entry lights and rainbow sparkles here on FB and Insta and another of other electrical projects here on FB and Insta.

Above: Kenny at work repairing and installing chandeliers. Below: Tim adding even more lights to the mix, and me installing LED disc lights in the guest side basement.

Above: A picture of a fisher by Deb Rittleman, the wonderful photographer (and family friend!) who has shared many bird photos with me featured in previous newsletters.

Nature Spotlight: Fisher (Pekania pennanti)

Fishers, also known as Fisher Cats, are decidedly not cats. In fact, they are in the mustelid family, along with weasels, minks, otters, martens, and wolverines. They are not closely related to any of those (they are believed to be most closely related to the wolverines) but instead are the only species of their own separate genus called Pekania. Visualize a huge bulky mink with a long body and a cute face and luxurious dark fur with reddish undertones.

They are native to North America, and their populations have slowly been recovering after being decimated by the fur trade (not to mention plenty of “kill all the predators” hunting of the past few centuries.) Though they continue to be challenged by habitat loss, they are now thriving in areas where there is enough wildness for them, as they are elusive creatures that tend to stick to higher-quality forest habitats.

Turns out, they are thriving here! I had of course heard of fishers, but did not really know that they were local to the area until we started seeing signs of them around my new place. One summer early in our time here, my dad and brother saw two young fishers playing in a tree while we were hiking down the gorge below my place, but they ran off just seconds before I got there. My brother got an incredible video, which he has posted on his Instagram page here (please watch it! Stills from it are useless but the video is so cool!). I still have yet to see one myself, but with the snow on the ground, I am suddenly able to see just how active they are in my area! On one warmish day between cold spells back in December, the shallow, semi-melted snow was ideal for showing absolutely perfect animal tracks. As Tim and I were skiing our trails, we saw tracks for perhaps every mammalian predator in our area: fox, coyote, bobcat, bear, and fisher! No wonder we have relatively few deer (which are extremely skittish). The fisher tracks were particularly cool. We were able to see the longer back foot, evidence of a few different gait patterns, and proof that they love to climb trees! I can’t wait until I finally catch a glimpse of one. (More on identifying fisher tracks here if you are curious.)

Above & Below: More incredible pictures of fishers taken by the amazing Deb Rittleman.

Above: February skiing adventures! Below: Skiing home in the twilight on 2/3/26.

P.S. Bonus Staircase addendum to January:

Well, I didn’t quite finish this in time to include it properly in the January newsletter, but the final staircase (for the guest basement) is done now. I did not have time to deliberate or fuss over a design idea, so I just jumped right in and did this freehand staircase pattern in greens that match other colors on the guest side. Seems a little like cartoon frogs, but I like it. It is even prettier in person I think. Below is a picture of the newly installed stairs and risers, and here is a video of me painting the risers and dad and I installing the stairs on FB and Insta.

Sirona Falls