Tomorrow's the winter solstice, which we'll be celebrating with a special meal, children's books about the solstice, and music. Here's a post from the ZRecs Archives about how we like to celebrate the "return of the light" with our daughter - an occasion that holds a special place for gardeners, but is a celebration of life and the seasons that everyone can relate to.

Thursday night was the winter solstice, an event that is surprisingly easy for a two-year-old to wrap her head around. We had our first annual Winter Solstice Celebration that night and Z had a blast. We explained to her that yesterday was the longest night of the year and that by celebrating, we were asking the sun to please start coming back and making our days longer and warmer.

Jeremiah had a chocolate cake in the oven when Z and I got home, and the two of them made yellow butter creme icing and then decorated the cake with the icing and construction paper triangles around the edges and a last-minute construction-paper smiley face. Next year, I'll push for cupcakes which can be easily frozen and enjoyed later - a three-person family just can't eat that much cake!

For dinner we made a vegan pumpkin soup, got out our best sun-themed dishes, and had ourselves a party. Here's the recipe:

Solstice Pumpkin Soup

• 4 cups veggie stock


• One can of 100% pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)


• Garlic and onion


• Olive oil


• One can of coconut milk


• Seasonings

Saute onion and garlic in a little olive oil until translucent, then blend with a little broth until smooth. Combine broth and pumpkin puree and warm over medium heat. Add the blended garlic and onion. Season with a little basil, oregano, thyme, and a dash each of paprika and cayenne. If the soup is too thin, add cornstarch to thicken. Add the can of coconut milk and heat on low until warm.


You might have seen this coming from the pic at top...

The bowls, which have sunflowers on them, surprised us by creating a sun of their own once we'd eaten a bit of soup and the yellow pointed tips of the sunflower petals appeared!

We had also planned to make pine cone feeders but ran out of time. We'll make those sometime next week.

We also played "Here Comes The Sun" and "Good Day Sunshine" by the Beatles. Z wanted to make a toast so we toasted to the return of the sun.

Do you like to do anything to commemorate the winter solstice with your family? Share it in the comments!

New York Times contributor Olivia Judson examines a new species in the making:

The appearance of a new species is not so dramatic. The first members of a new species will typically be indistinguishable - to us - from the species they have evolved from. And while extinction has a clear final moment - the last member of a species dies - the formation of a new species does not usually happen in a single recognizable instant. Which is why we haven’t yet raised our glasses to celebrate, say, Rhagoletis pomonella, the apple maggot fly.

This species is in the process of splitting into two. Until the mid-1800s, R. pomonella was a hawthorn fly: adults met at hawthorn fruits to mate and lay eggs. But then apples were introduced to North America. Some haw flies found these fruits attractive places to gather, and began to mate and lay their eggs on apples instead.

Today, flies that like apples have become genetically distinct from those that like haw. There are a couple of reasons why. First, flies meet each other at fruits. Since most flies have a preference for one fruit over the other, haw-preferring flies tend to meet other haw-preferring flies, and ditto for apple flies.

Read all about it at the link.