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

Food Shortages

I'm in Oregon today speaking at the Azure Harvest Festival and a question from the audience during a Q&A stimulated a lot of discussion: "What do you think about the possibility and preparation surrounding food shortages?" David Stelzer, founder of Azure Standard, answered that the issue is not food volume, it's food nutrition. That was an interesting answer that has a lot of merit. As a nation, we are overfed and undernourished. This is the crux of the MAHA movement and the epidemic diseases we see in our country. At Polyface, we know the pastured meat and poultry we produce is far superior in essential phytochemicals and other nutrients due to the carotenes, exercise, and stress-free habitat we offer. You can taste the difference, feel the difference in texture, and measure it empirically. Perhaps my most poignant affirmation was our cat test. We purchased meat from the supermarket and offered our own for the four cats. They wouldn't touch the conventional meat (ground beef). Even though two plates and four cats would be much easier to accommodate if they spread out, all four crowded around the plate with our meat, eating it all and licking it up, before later sniffing and gingerly eating the supermarket counterpart. Since cats don't understand TV ads or USDA propaganda, they know what's good and what's not. We encourage anyone dismissive of food differences to ask their pets: you can trust them far more than doctors and experts. Yes, I get the nutrient deficiency angle on the shortage question. But I'd like to explore it a bit further. Right now, the world throws away more human-edible food, as a percentage of production, than at any time in human history. The planet is awash in food. Some 40 percent gets thrown away because it has a slight blemish, exceeds the sell-by date, or is tainted in some way. We have a fundamentally segregated food supply rather than an integrated one, and that creates a lot of unusable waste. The vulnerabilities of our food system, I think, are much more subtle. When I was in Uruguay two years ago, speaking at a conference, one of the other presenters was from Germany and showed a soil map of the globe. Not a single commercial agricultural region had a stable or positive soil trajectory. Every single area on the planet is losing soil; some faster than others, but globally our soil depletion continues without any sign of abatement. This is not a good trajectory. As much as the technocrats promise food without soil, that's not the way to bet. Soil is the skin of the earth. When it goes, famine results. The main difference now compared to centuries ago is that we have the capacity to move food around. Nobody starves due to a lack of food on the planet; they starve due to socio-political unrest and dysfunction. But what happens when massive areas can't grow anything anymore? Even being able to move food around doesn't help when there isn't enough. The soil trajectory does not look good. But at Polyface, we're building soil. Areas covered with shale (layered rocks) half a century ago now have a foot of soil on them. That's not the 3-5 feet that 150 years of inappropriate tillage eroded, but it's a build-back start. In addition to soil loss, as a planet we're seeing hydrologic decreases. The Oglala aquifer, which undergirds the irrigated agriculture in five states, has dropped more than 100 feet in the last half-century. At its current rate, it will be unpumpable in about 50 more years. Imagine if all those circular irrigation pivots in Nebraska and Kansas shut down. What then? At Polyface, we keep building ponds to inventory surface runoff. By definition, surface runoff occurs when rains come too fast at once or too much at one time for the soil to absorb it. Holding that and using it strategically in a drought is a way to reduce flooding during rain events and grow grass when it gets dry. This is one of the most landscape resilient techniques we can implement. Finally, major animal and plant diseases threaten the world's food systems like never before. African swine fever, hoof and mouth disease in cattle, and bird flu in poultry appear to be getting worse and covering larger areas. Why? We believe it's because chemicals and factory farming compromise the immunological systems in both plants and animals. Monocrops and chemical fertilizers wreak havoc on immune systems, opening the planet's food systems to new levels of fragility. In contrast, at Polyface, we believe happy animals and biodiversity offer the best antidote to immunological deficiency. Stress from unsanitary conditions, mono-species density, or dietary deficiency (rations or fertilizer) invites disease. Nature uses disease to cull the weak. Predators pick off the stragglers. This is the way biology works. But at Polyface, we keep these vulnerabilities at bay with compost fertilization, pasture rotations, and lots of species diversity, including pollinators and wildlife. Here's the point: the basic long-term vulnerabilities in the planet's food systems could all be reversed with practices Polyface uses every day. Looked at another way, the entire food shortage question could be answered if eaters and farmers implemented these ecological and immunological protocols, working together to rather than completely separated. We don't need to fall into an abyss of starvation. If we all simply began eating food from farms that build soil, increase water, and stimulate immunity, we could deliver a hospitable, abundant planet to our children. Reversing these trajectories wouldn't take much time or money. It takes intentionally-minded folks who connect the chain of sustenance from their plate to the planet. Polyface patrons do that. Thank you. Let's heal the land together. Joel

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5 Ways to bring Hygge to Your Picnic Area

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