Tis the season of profound dormancy in the wooded hills of northern Romania, yet the birds, deer, rabbits and foxes are so very alive - casting their whereabouts in the snow. Mice and other creatures are happily hiding underneath the great white blanket, nibbling grass seeds under haystacks and devouring their winter stores, out of sight and out of mind till the flowing melt begins...

Wheels ground to a halt this season when 45 cm of white, frosty flakes covered the roofs and lands in the course of one night. In a village with no plows, people took to brooms and shovels to make knee-deep paths in the snow. Promptly the horses and sleighs took over the arduous task of bringing freshly harvested alder and beech down from the woodlands during the week. On the weekends they engaged the tourists with a chance of a lifetime, to live like we all lived once upon a time: traveling upon a horse-powered sleigh to navigate the hilly lanes of the village, laughing all the way!

In deep snow, wheels are no good, so we must return to our animal instincts and stumble-walk headlong into the drifts, casting our own bootprints in the snow. Though it is tempting to stay inside, toasty by the fireplace, nature beckons us to see the incredible beauty she has produced.

Stepping out into a vast bed of snow is like venturing into the freezing sea, walking through it and forging your own path, however, is a measure of stronger willpower. If you know the lay of the land, then everything will be alright, if not, you might be in for a deeper surprise... It goes without saying, that if you know by heart the footpaths walked by generations and the way the land flows intimately, then navigating the covered terrain will be far easier, than to step blindly as a stranger on the first outing.

In our part of the world, this means recognizing key trees and befriending the many haystacks that dot the landscape. As we walk familiar routes throughout the village spaces and beyond the edges of civilisation, we become acquainted with the age, season of harvest and shape of each haystack. Some weather gracefully, others slide and slump over time, while the rest remain forever young in body and spirit.

Haystacks are the quintessential markers of the land and the pride of the landowners.

In winter, they don their village coats, not of handspun wool, but of heavy snow, and they each seem to take on new personalities, if only for a short while. They come and go at a reasonable pace, carefully deconstructed and loaded onto carts heading for wooden stables with hungry cows. Such a movement of dried grass is to be found few places in the world, and to make the hay by hand scythe, well, we can only hope that is not a dying art...

A long winter is also filled with moments to slow down, to reflect, to dream, to carve poems that nurture our souls:

In the deepest depths of winter,
listen

Silently shiver under a crystal blanket
soothe your ears
with a comforting blankness,
dampening,
muffling,
relief

Listen

communicate in soundlessness
hear the fox bark
give ear to the jays’ bicker
explore footprints running astray
do not speak
hearken

Quiet as dark
bright as the sun
snow keeps on piling,
covering,
blowing,
adding to the undeniable beauty of winter

For months and months
the land is ever white
it won’t be long till all is speckled with
snow
drops
drips
puddles
Earth

As we indulge in our private collection of homemade preserves and sit in silence with determined reason, we already dream about blossoms aplenty - though we will not rush nature, patience is a winter virtue indeed.

Follow Cheryl and her family as they navigate Instagram without a smart phone at Forest Creek Meadows.

As the days are getting colder and the nights are getting longer, we feel the urgency to slow down. It is time to withdraw into our cosy lairs and dream about the future. A future which benefits the seasoned environment, as well as satiates our human needs and desires.

Yet, there are questions begging to be asked: "When was the last time you had a screen-free day to spend hours fantasising how to achieve a sustainable future?" and "When was the last time you spent an entire weekend without a device by your side?" Most of us don't even know what that feels like anymore, though it is likely that we grew up without a constant stream of technology, so remembering is only a silent thought away. With digital devices shut off, the quiet that ensues is relaxing, calming, and downright grounding - especially if you have the time and place for a barefoot walk.

The human species has embraced technology with the tightest grip in such a short amount of time, that our brains and eyes are moving faster than we can comprehend. How can we fully absorb the growing flow of information? In favor of being entertained online, we have left behind the abundant wealth of nature, which is quick on the decline due to our habits of over-consumption. However, it is never too late to let go of that embrace, to slowly pull away and admit that perhaps it was not the 'love at first swipe' that we first imagined.

It is wonderful to know, that the best things in life still happen off the screen, just ask any wild child. 

Just the other day, my husband and daughter were playing out in a neighbouring field, throwing a stainless steel cup attached to a flat cotton wick for oil lamps (a homemade toy). Amidst all the fun of tossing high into the strong wind - to watch it fly - a fox appeared close to the hedgerow going about his/her business. It was a magical moment, just the three of them, no screens in sight, no camera to capture the moment. It was a connection with nature that will last a lifetime.

What does designing a sustainable life have to do with a chance-encounter of meeting a red fox? Everything.

See, when we are stuck behind screens (televisions, tablets or the like), we are mere observers in the game of life. It often appears that we are here to be entertained, rather than to be key players in the main event. We often choose what is easy and uncomplicated, preferring not to get our hands dirty. We've become a society of watchers, rather than doers, though we can change that too - if we want - and that is why sustainability starts at home.

It begins with limiting our addiction to technology, learning, once again, how to shut off the noise that clouds our heads with some important and much useless information. It takes gathering the time and courage to get outside, and hike further afield then we are used to exploring. It takes getting outside of our comfort zone, off of the couch and out of our climate-controlled homes.

If there is one single thing that we need to realise quickly about sustainability, it is that we all make an impact - in the right or wrong direction. Let go of your "need" for plastic, and seek out natural, renewable alternatives instead. Go minimalist and pare down your wardrobe, keeping only the essentials. Then practice your handcrafting skills and knit, crochet and sew the next garments that enter your closet. Do a wonderful job and they may just last a lifetime! Lighten your load and practice buying nothing new for an extended period of time - there are so many ways to reduce your impact on this Earth.

Designing a sustainable life is not a trend, it is an important aspect of our modern life - for if we fail to change, nature will no longer be on our side.

And since we are inspired by nature every day, most of you reading this are too, the prospect of losing bits and pieces of our environment is a thought too great to bear. We'd rather live simply, so that all bears (white, black, tall and small) can roam the forests freely, just as nature intended.

Do your dreams of a sustainable life keep nature in mind?

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Do you remember that exact moment from your childhood - sploshing in through the back door, sopping wet and dripping all over the floor after enjoying a series of muddy puddles, with an enormous smile on your face?  Do you recall that criticizing expression on an adult’s profile that dampened/squashed/ruined your delight with a mere glance?

It is absolutely true that children know how to have more fun, especially when it comes to experiencing the novelties of nature. Everything is a new, exciting experience for them, from jumping into a pile of leaves, to letting the water in the creek gently caress their tiny hands, and oh, the joys that can be had with clay!

Us adults? We are far too reserved to have spontaneous fun like that. We don’t want to waste time, or create more work by getting dirty. We tend to opt for the easy way out, staying clean and dry, every chance we get - after all, going to work, working from home, life in general and raising a family is definitely tiring. Yet, we are missing out on those very experiences that make us feel - and come - alive!

Unfortunately, the “easy way out”, the ultimate way to relax, has become that of the technological and digital kind. Traversing life on the internet is a clean activity, it is mostly indoors and it doesn’t strain our muscles, and it is certainly not dependent on rain. It’s safe enough to hide behind our screens, and let our children do the same, in part because everyone else is doing it; we have grown accustomed to it.

We check our email at various times of day, waiting for letters that have not yet arrived. We search for likes and comments on social media, simply because we want to be seen and heard. But, to be seen and heard, felt and understood, we need to communicate in other ways.

In order to rediscover life beyond the screen, we must admit that smartphones don’t need us quite as much as we need them. We need to know that people will wait for our reply, and that busyness and checking in is exhausting.

To get back to a simpler way of life - way before all this phone, laptop and connectedness craze started - takes courage!

It takes removing ourselves from electrical impulses, and replacing them with grounding instincts, which can be as uncomplicated as walking barefoot on the beach, or on your own grassy lawn.

The modern term for this healing time without distracting screens is digital detox. The concept is so novel that it has yet to be translated into every language. It is as easy as turning off your Wi-Fi for an entire day, or logging out of Facebook for a week, so that you are not tempted in any way to check in on what you are missing. Here’s a kind hint: it is much of a nothingness.

It may feel strange at first to disconnect, to be unavailable online. Just know that it gets easier every time you make the effort to do it.

And that life beyond the screen?

It is filled with hours and hours of meaningful things to do, it is teeming with face-to-face meetings over tea and coffee, it contains gardens, plants and animals of both the furry and feathered kind. And it is yours for the taking!

What can you do without a screen to entertain yourself, assuming that the word boredom does not exist?

• Go for a walk in nature, far or near, on the sand or under trees.

• Take photographs with a camera (not your phone) or sketch what you see in your journal.

• Cook using your intuition and heart, skipping the recipes and meal plans.

• Spend copious time with the people you know and love in person: playing, talking, dreaming, laughing.

Remember how much merrymaking and enjoyment you had as a child before computers and cell phones entered the sacred space of the family home. Those mechanical objects used to belong to businesses, yet somewhere along the way we have claimed them for our own, in the hopes that they would make our lives efficient, easier. And they have done that to a certain extent, but we have also brought into our private homes a good deal of the work stress and expectations of 24-hour availability…

If the mere idea of too much technology frustrates you, it is the ideal time to provide distance between you and your devices.

Start small, shutting your phone completely off at night. Log out of all accounts, making an extra step for yourself to check back in. Digital detox for one day a week, then for two. Gradually work your way up to an entire week of free time, carved out just for you.

What is stopping you from rediscovering life beyond the screen?

If you are so inclined, you can even Digital Detox With Us, in Breb, Romania. We can provide the backdrop of a beautiful landscape in which to (re)experience nature, gather up some foraging and homesteading skills and join in the daily activities (chopping wood, organic gardening, making fire and carrying water) of like-minded people, engaging in meaningful and essential conversations about the environment.

Falling, falling… literally and figuratively falling.

In autumn, time falls back, at least on the face of the clock.

When you spend enough time in rural Romania, your soul will fall back in time, as you see the villagers with strong horses pulling carts up to the forests to harvest their firewood, and the few surviving looms being warped once again – maybe for their last time, until the creative renaissance sets in and young people begin weaving hemp and nettle cloth anew.

Now is the time when everything seems to fall into place, and fall out of it at the same time.

Autumn has long held the number one place in my heart for the most enduring and endearing season of all. Until now. Or rather, just this once I am taking the liberty to change my mind.

Fall can be beautifully coloured, as most years it is, but every 40 years or so nature decides on another plan. While not an entirely sinister plot, one can be frightened in a storm if they happen to be caught out in the pounding hail and slapping rain. As fall was just setting in, my husband, daughter and I were happily expecting to spend the first night in our new home as the clouds rolled in, faster than we have ever seen before, sweeping like billowing smoke over the mountain crest.

As we trudged onward in the blinding storm, unable to see or hear each other, we were unaware of the trees falling down around us. In just 20 minutes the wind took its chance, sweeping gates off of their feet and uprooting glorious walnuts and ash, breaking firs clean in half. Clay tiles took their own fate to fall to the earth as well…

The ferocious storm, a reminder of a changing climate and the effects of unconscious consumerism, will remain in our memories for a long time. Just as there have been hurricanes and forest fires this season aplenty, life carries on and after a time everything falls into place once again.

The walnut that fell? Well, that will be firewood for next summer, but at the moment it is feeding us with oyster mushrooms that spontaneously erupted when we lovingly carried it into the wood shed. Life goes on.

Along came the rain, for more than a 24 hour stay, and do you know what appeared in abundance at the bottom of the creek? Clay. Perfect for building, sculpting and playing with. It has been there all along, buried under layers of rocks, now it is accessible for those who need a handful or two for a wood oven repair.

Every time you fall down and pick yourself back up, is a chance to start over. It is the ultimate opportunity for change. Any season, a single day, or a unique experience can tell us that maybe life has a different path in store for us, a challenge if you will. Since life really is about the journey, just follow along and you will find out where you are meant to be, if only for a moment, or many years into the future.

An entire year we have spent now in Breb, Romania and it has perhaps been our most adventurous year yet. We have weathered the storms together, harvested the powerful nutrients from wild herbs, and burnt the alder and beech firewood of local forests for comfort and warmth.

Everything we need in this world is right here, around us and within us.

In the depths of a frozen winter, horse-pulled sleighs or the more modern (one could argue: outdated) tractors and trailers, brought down loads of harvested trees from the surrounding snow-drenched woodlands. In two seasons temperatures rose from -15 ˚C during the night to more than +30 during the day, adding an extra layer of heat to our kitchen which is fuelled with a wood stove. Yet, the uncomfortably hot nights will soon return to layers of heavy blankets, just as the light of day will turn into long hours of darkness and dinners lit by hand-dipped beeswax candles.

The seasons march merrily along.

As much as we would like to proclaim that “summer is fun!” (perhaps the local schoolkids would like to say this as well), it is really a time of preparing for winter, and there is plenty of work for all ages and all abilities. Young children help their parents and grandparents out in the fields too, from sunup to sundown work is a family affair.

One season leads into another, and as quickly - or slowly - as the work is done, the next is ready to begin.

There is no summer break, there is only Sunday to provide a day of rest for weary backs and tired hands. Minimal work is allowed on this day - feeding the animals, milking the family’s one, two or three cows, and harvesting some fresh vegetables from the garden. Many dress up in their traditional Sunday best and wander down to the center of the village, while others choose the glass bottles and kinship at the bar over the altar at the church, and some locals opt for visiting family and friends because even in a small village where everybody knows everyone and many people are related by some act of fate or another, the land and the animals always take precedence.

Summer is as it has always been - the phase to prepare for winter.

Animals need to eat and stay clean in the stable, and hay is on the menu year-round. If there is an art to creating a beautiful and functional haystack, the people of Maramureș have perfected it and called it their own. With some haystacks reaching 4-5 meters in hight, it is usually the woman’s honour to stand atop whilst it is being built, being in control of packing the hay densely and forming the stack so that it can withstand rain, wind and snow or whatever nature throws at it.

Just how many hours go into creating a haystack? It greatly depends on the amount of active family members, whether the grass is scythed by hand or machine, and if it is the first, second or even third cut of the year. It’s idyllic to see the many haystacks dotting the landscape, but the unseen downside is the overabundance of hay, at the same time having fewer and fewer animals every year to eat it. The labour is that of love, and if it were not done the landscape would be seen as unclean, unkept, or wild.

In village life, there is a constant desire for balance set upon the eagerness to keep busy, if there is no work to be done, then work will be made.

Consumerism is not rampant here, yet many people have more than they need, and not everything that they want. With little money people are modest, yet extremely giving and generous in nature and their vast orchards and enormous gardens keep them busy, satisfied and fulfilled.

Breb is a fascinating place where giving and sharing is prevalent. Here you can buy (or often receive for free) bacon and potatoes from your neighbour or the little lady down the lane rather than shopping at the store and at this very moment eggs are in short supply because of the hot weather, yet the milk is always on tap in any stable, available at the morning or evening milking.

Nights are quiet, save for the random wild boar running down the gravel road, and the air is fresh and clean. Nature, fruit and hay are in ultimate abundance and now is the time to stockpile our winter supply.

Reliably unpredictable was the forecast as the freezing winter turned into a decorative pattern of humble flowers and vast green expanses, eventually blanketed by an unexpected five inches of snow, delivered fashionably late - well past the middle of April.

The transformation of the landscape was gradual, from the ochre, sepia and russet hues to that of a verdant green which magically appeared overnight.

As spring slowly, but surely, takes the main stage, dandelions now cover random fields with a carpet of blazing yellow, while the lungwort and stinging nettles sit in the shade of fruit trees along boundary lines and fences. These unpresuming plants are waiting for the bees, and the humans respectively, to appreciate their pollen and essential minerals.

In village tradition, the gardens are being ploughed and turned with the use of horse power or tractor. The potatoes are slumbering in neat rows, waiting patiently for soil temperatures to rise; lettuce is planted closer to home, the peas and spinach too. Yet when we look beyond the conventional vegetable fare, we realize that extensive foraging is viable here in Romania. Beyond picking basketfuls of mushrooms and learning to recognize plants that are new to us, harvesting from the wild is also a wonderful way to interact with the land and the multitude of native plants it has to offer.

Already, we are adding alfalfa to salads, drinking hearty broths of raspberry stem tea (the leaves are just beginning to emerge) and dandelion leaves can be harvested by the bushelful – if only people knew what they were missing!

A warmer and sunnier spell in March saw us hiking halfway up to the crest to tap a stand of birch trees for water, apă de mesteacăn, which allowed us to taste for the first time the cleansing earthiness and energy of trees.

Red squirrels, still in their winter black fur, can be seen cracking the random walnut in the lower branches of fir trees, while the cuckoo calls from the depths of the woodlands where the sheep and shepherds roam. The hoopoe, Upupa epops, can be heard where the orchards sprawl to the west as they proclaim ownership to their territory.

All the while chickens are clucking and laying their daily farm fresh eggs, scythes are being honed, wooden rakes are carried on hardened shoulders and the work that stops only on Sundays and holidays, goes on at a steady pace, for there are always animals to feed, equipment to be repaired and seeds to be planted.

Nature is displaying her beguiling abundance with infinite blossoms as the bees and various flying insects do their best to keep up with the wind, the cold, the heat and the constantly changing weather. They must adapt, and so shall we, for although this spring is short and sweet, summer will be quickly upon us. One can already sense it by the amount of tourists coming to visit and fall in love with this quaint and delightful village of Breb.

As we experience one revitalizing season, then another, we know that patience for summer will reward us with fruits from the land and experiences to last a lifetime.

Today I'm delighted to introduce the first in a series of seasonal posts by Cheryl, a writer and advocate of simple living currently living with her family in a beautiful Romanian village. For more, head over to her blog and inspiring website.

Once upon a time, in a far-away land, there was a little village surrounded by orchards and fields dotted with ochre haystacks, full of women and men meaningfully wandering through the fenceless landscape, carrying handwoven baskets on their backs in the sun, in the rain and in the snow.

And this winter, in our fairy-tale village of Breb, Romania, this real place on Earth which our family calls home, the recent cold and snowy months have been dreamlike, in the most frozen and wintry sense.

Temperatures have dipped to -20°C for nights on end, pipes have frozen and flowing water has turned the streets into thick glaciers, providing entertainment for the young sledgers who race downhill, screaming with laughter at high speed all the way. But to walk on such ice, to visit a neighbour, or go downhill to the village shop is a matter of slipping, sliding and by some skillful act of balance – not falling down.

Here, the cold comes with simple beauty. The ice flowers that grow overnight, present themselves in the morning light. The foothills are covered with white, glistening magic. The smell of burning fir and alder fills the air as the smoke billows from small chimneys attached to wooden homes. As we step outside, we inhale life and death as we become part of this ethereal landscape. The smoke is a reminder of the trees that are harvested in the foothills of the Gutâi Mountains, the very thing that keeps us warm and alive.

In winter, it seems that wood is harvested every day, felled by chainsaws and brought down from the hills by horse and sleigh, the exception being Sunday when no work is allowed. I put another log on the fire with hope deep in my heart that come warmer weather, in another season, I will see seedlings being planted on these very hills, for if they were to be thinned to the point of lace work, what would these traditional wooden houses be born of instead? Concrete and bits of styrofoam hopefully will not overtake this romantic existence, but like the loss of craftsmanship, only time will tell.

In a place where looms outnumber the weavers, we can brazenly dream that the old ways will not be lost in favour of greed…

So, as we deeply slumber under heavy, handmade woollen blankets, woven from the fibres of the Țurcana sheep, we dare consider the reverie of spring – trees filled with flowers in the billions, and of birds chirping their sweet songs. Adventure awaits higher up the forested hills, near the peat bogs of Morărenilor Lake, on the Creasta Cocoșului (Rooster’s Crest) and in walking barefoot among gentle blades of green while foraging for all that disappears in winter.

To live simply among the seasons has never been so enchanting, or so full of mirth.