5 Ways to bring Hygge to Your Picnic Area

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April 18, 2024

As the hues of spring unfurl and the air turns balmy with the sunshine, it's time to bid farewell to winter's chill and welcome the cozy embrace of hygge into our outdoor spaces.

With nature awakening from its slumber and the world teeming with life, there's no better time to infuse your deck/patio/picnic area with the art of hygge.

Hygge (ho͞oɡə, h-you-guh) is a Norwegian word and means creating a warm atmosphere and enjoying the good things in life with good people.

So, grab your favorite blanket, and a basket of treats, and let's explore five simple ways to create a haven of warmth and comfort amidst the blossoming beauty of spring. Forget about the busyness of the season. Take time to linger in the moment and allow all 5 of your senses to drink in this season.

Soft Textures and Warm Layers: Hygge is all about tactile pleasures, and there's no better way to evoke a sense of coziness than with soft textures and warm layers. Drape your picnic area with light blankets, oversized cushions, and snuggly throws (for the cool evenings). Try an outdoor rug or tablecloth for an aesthetic and tactile appeal to your senses. Choose natural materials like wool or cotton charm. Encourage your family or guests to sink into the comfort of fluffy pillows while savoring the delights of spring.
Soft Lighting and Candle Glow: As the sun sets and dusk settles, let the gentle flicker of candlelight cast a warm glow over your picnic area. Embrace the ambiance of fairy lights or Edison string lights strung from tree branches, strung around your eating area, or even just nestled among potted plants. Scatter candles in lanterns or mason jars to create a magical atmosphere that draws you to linger a little longer under the starry sky. Soft light will instantly transform your outdoor space into a sanctuary of serenity.
Nourishing Comfort Foods: What's a picnic without an abundance of delectable treats wherein to indulge? Embrace the spirit of hygge by curating a menu of nourishing comfort foods that warm your soul, tantalize your taste buds, and truly nourish your body. Think hearty stew with crusty bread, raw cheeses, and an assortment of fresh soil-grown veggies. Encourage your family to savor each bite slowly, relishing the flavors and the joy of communal dining amidst nature's embrace.
Nature-Inspired Decor: Channel the essence of spring's renewal by incorporating nature-inspired decor into your picnic area. Adorn your table with freshly picked blooms, or fragrant herbs in clay pots. Create a whimsical centerpiece using fresh boughs, pine cones, or pebbles collected from an outdoor adventure. Let the sights, scents, and sounds of nature envelop you, enhancing the hygge experience with its innate beauty and tranquility. If you can't hear an abundance of birds singing, try a nature-sound playlist to help cultivate a sense of peace and calm.
Mindful Moments of Connection: I know I mentioned this in my previous blog post, but it is vital. At the heart of hygge lies the simple pleasure of meaningful connections shared with loved ones. Foster a sense of intimacy and togetherness by encouraging mindful moments of connection during your picnic gatherings. Put away electronic devices, engage in heartfelt conversations, and relish the laughter that dances on the breeze. Create cherished memories as you bask in the warmth - not only of Spring's beauty - but of deep human connection, surrounded by nature's bounty in this season.
(Bonus!) Mindful Use of Natural Resources: Try these simple ideas for taking care of the Earth and practicing sustainability. 1. Try a meal or two using real dishes in your outdoor dining area rather than paper products to throw away. 2. Source as many of your meal ingredients as possible directly from a farm dedicated to sustainable practices. 3. Compost any scraps left over from your dining experience. 4. Take off your shoes! Did you know that the Earth is basically a huge battery that recharges us when we let it? "Earthing appears to counteract inflammation through the transfer of negatively-charged electrons from Earth’s surface into the body. Once in the body, those electrons neutralize positively charged destructive free radicals involved in acute, as well as chronic, inflammation. In essence, the Earth's energy makes the ground beneath our feet an extremely effective and abundant antioxidant! And it’s free. No pills, no prescriptions. All you have to do is reconnect." (-grounded.com/what-is-earthing)

As you embark on your journey to infuse your picnic area with hygge this spring, remember that it's not about perfection. Rather, it's about embracing the present moment and finding joy in life's simple pleasures...even in small pockets of time.

So, gather your loved ones, bask in the beauty this season, and create a warm atmosphere and enjoy the good things in life with good people. Let yourself be enveloped in a cozy cocoon of warmth and contentment. Choose one or two of these ideas to implement this season, and see where it takes you.

Here's to picnics filled with laughter, love, and Spring's song.

Hannah

Duplication

"How does this scale?" Whenever someone asks me that question, the underlying assumption is that production volume requires consolidation, concentration, and centralization. In other words, the only way to feed the world is to make bigger chicken houses in one place, bigger canneries in one place, bigger machines and bigger warehouses. I remember well being vilified by a Smithsonian historian at a food conference where he and I were both on a panel. When I dared to suggest bigger is not always better, he interrupted me and ranted for 10 minutes on why bigger is always better. "A bigger fort was always bigger than a smaller one. A bigger gun was always better than a smaller one." He went on and on about how historical accuracy and authenticity demands addiction to bigger. But biology is not forts and guns. It's not mechanical. Critters have an optimal size. As animal behaviorist guru Temple Grandin says, living things demand energy for three things: reproduction, growth, and immunological function. All three must be in balance. When anyone selects for only one of those traits, the other two suffer. That's why American dairy cows only have two lactations on average. When they milk as heavily as our one-trait genetic selection asks, they don't breed and have all sorts of sickness problems. Nature does not scale through concentration; it scales with duplication. If nature wants more oak, it doesn't make one big tree; it makes acorns. If nature wants more milk, it doesn't make a great big cow; it makes calves. If nature wants more tomatoes, it doesn't make a monster tomato plant; it makes a bunch of seeds that make more tomato plants. Nature scales with duplication. At Polyface, rather than having a chicken house big enough for 15,000 chickens, we have 170 little 120 square foot portable shelters holding 75 birds apiece and giving us cumulative capacity for 15,000. But they're spread out in modules, duplicated, to give us the production volume. We run pigs in groupings of 35-50. A Smithfield confinement facility might house 5,000 hogs in a bigger-than-football-field-sized facility. The stench is unbearable. By spreading these pigs out across the landscape in small groups we get the same scale without any of the ecological, immunological, or animal welfare dysfunction. This could even be said of farming in general. People see the massive corn, soybean, and alfalfa farms in the mid-west and wonder how we would possibly survive without those massive, single-species outfits. The fact is they aren't even producing food. Half the soybeans are exported to other countries; those markets are drying up rapidly with competition from other countries like Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil. Nearly half the corn goes to taxpayer-subsidized ethanol. The alfalfa goes to Japan and Saudi Arabia to feed racehorses. By and large, all that production isn't even food. The fact is we don't need to produce all those commodities and even if we needed it all for food, we could do it in a more spread out, diversified platform. America has 35 million acres in lawns. We have 36 million acres housing and feeding recreational horses. All of this could be turned into duplicative production, like acorns for oak trees. My point is this: scale as commonly understood in modern American lexicon is completely anti-ecological. The real mechanism for scale is duplication. A more democratized production creating volume through multiplicative nodes is the way nature works. This is why farms like Polyface, with spread out infrastructure in repeated modules offers multiple advantages. Polyface can't feed the world by itself, and we have no desire to build an empire trying to. But thousands of Polyfaces can feed the world. Indeed, they're the only way to do it for the next 500 years. This is one reason why we invest heavily in germinating new young farmers. Our stewardship and apprenticeship programs are all about this kind of duplication. In fact, Aug. 21-22 we're hosting the Stockman Grass Farmer's Launching Young Farmers conference where we'll feature 8 of our graduates who were 20 years old, no money, no land, and at 40 are full-time farming without government subsidies. If you ever dreamed of bootstrapping a farming career, you should come. We still have room. It will be the most profound agricultural conference in America this year. Information is on our website on the education tab. For most of you, the fact that you keep us in business to duplicate production and the farmers who will carry these principles forward, indicates your heart investing in an authentic food and farming model. Thank you for making it all possible.

5 Ways to bring Hygge to Your Picnic Area

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