Waiting on Spring, Working Through Winter

🌿 When Distilling and Making Are in Full Swing

Snow covers the ground and slows the gardens, but it doesn’t stop the work. Here in the Ozarks, we like to say that if you don’t like the weather, just wait a few days — you might get all four seasons in a single week. While distilling and making are in full swing indoors, our goats and chickens eye the snow with clear disappointment, waiting for warmer ground and greener days. It’s a familiar rhythm here, one season giving way to the next whether everyone agrees or not.

Winter has a way of slowing the outside world, but on the homestead, it often marks the beginning of one of our busiest and most meaningful seasons.

Even when snow settles over the hills and the gardens rest under frost, the work continues. Distilling and making don’t pause just because the ground is cold — they simply move indoors, closer to the still, the work tables, and the rhythms that carry us toward spring.

This time of year is about preparation. Hydrosols are distilled and rest quietly on shelves. Soaps are poured and cured. Lotions, remedies, and seasonal products are refined and made in batches. It’s a steady, thoughtful pace — not hurried, but intentional — knowing that farmers markets and spring festivals are just ahead.

Flowing With the Seasons

Living and working on the homestead means learning to flow with the seasons rather than fight them.

Winter is when we distill certain botanicals, review notes from the past year, and make decisions about what to grow, what to expand, and what to simplify. Seeds are sorted, plans are sketched, and trays are set aside for the first plant starts. Even snowed in, there’s a sense of movement — a quiet momentum that carries us forward.

Distillation during this season feels especially grounding. The still warms the workspace, and the scent of fresh hydrosol reminds us that spring is already on its way, even if the landscape hasn’t caught up yet.

Preparing for Farmers Markets and Spring Festivals

As farmers markets and spring festivals approach, the focus sharpens.

Products are checked, labels reviewed, and inventories built. Each item we bring to market represents not just a finished product, but weeks or months of preparation — from seeds started, plants tended, botanicals harvested or gathered, and careful distillation and formulation.

We think a lot during this time about how people will experience our booth. Not just what they’ll see on the table, but what they’ll smell, learn, and carry with them. For us, markets and festivals are as much about conversation and education as they are about sales.

A Year-Round Practice

Distilling and making are year-round practices here. The work changes with the seasons, but it never truly stops.

There’s something deeply satisfying about knowing that even when the world outside feels quiet or frozen, the cycle continues — plants becoming hydrosols, ideas becoming products, and preparations quietly unfolding for the months ahead.

As spring arrives and the roads lead once again to farmers markets and festivals, we carry winter’s work with us. Each bottle, bar, and jar reflects time spent paying attention, honoring the process, and staying connected to the land that makes it all possible.

We’re looking forward to seeing familiar faces again, meeting new ones, and sharing the season as it unfolds.