Warming up to an island winter

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE ROCK, where my holidays have been rocking and rolling, including today’s festive visit to Lopez Island’s Little Winter Market, held in the goat barn at Sunnyfield Farm on Fisherman Bay Road.

This month has been a whirlwind of holiday celebration and preparation, with more socializing than I often get in several months of lonely winter Sundays.

My new partner, Carol Z., and I have spent this week on our own at our respective homes for the first time in a while, which has just convinced me all the more that we belong together.

Admittedly, much of my most recent island socializing has been with the next-door neighbors, John (the jovial Mad Birder) and the baker extraordinaire who is also his wife, Carol F. (I now have four Carols in the contact list on my phone.)

But earlier in the month I headed south for the annual Burns Family holiday potluck at the home of sister- and brother-in-law Sarah and Danny. No Tater Tot Casseroles there; this potluck featured, among many other things, deliciously grilled venison (which, hmmm, might give Santa cause to count heads Sunday night) and included a Christmas sweater contest. A dash to Goodwill had me outfitted in a yule sweater of poor taste and tackiness, but I won no prize. Nor did honors go to daughter Lillian’s entry, with Santa riding a unicorn in outer space. (Can you believe she got skunked?) Nephew Patrick and his partner Heather, in sweaters with flashing lights sewn into them, walked home with the prize. Tech triumphs over tacky.

Carol Z. and I celebrated Hanukkah with our friends Daniel and Jean in Olympia, enjoying a splendid lunch of Daniel’s chanterelle omelets and homemade latkes and Jean’s Moroccan carrots, among other treats. With a stunning view of a wintry Mount Rainier, we all went for a delightful hike along waterfront and through woods with Carol’s dog, Chevy, who looks like a walking, woofing reincarnation of my family’s childhood pooch, Skippy.

The Mad Birder and Carol joined me for a progressive (two-cabin) Solstice Celebration this past Thursday, with winter fruits and complementary cheeses at the Nuthatch, where I read Robert Frost’s “An Old Man’s Winter Night” and we sipped apple jack and a hearty red wine. At their place, the poet was Mary Oliver, with Carol reading “White-Eyes” and M.B. giving a heartfelt rendition of “First Snow.” They also served salad, seedy sourdough bread, M.B.’s special Manhattan clam chowder (with a happy lip-tingling touch of cayenne) and Carol’s chocolate cake topped with cream cheese and shaved coconut. Good wine flowed. Christmas tunes played. Nobody suffered.

Today, M.B. and Carol kindly gave me a lift in their runabout, Brazen, to Lopez Island, where they planned a winter hike while I tended to necessary business, disposing of trash and recycling at the headquarters of the Lopez Island Solid Waste Disposal District (motto: “Not Your Average Dump”).

Along the way, however, a roadside sandwich board alerted me to the Little Winter Market, happening this day at the goat farm. I’d been to it once before, a few years ago, and knew it for a treat. I had to pull over.

As before, the Entermann family, stewards of the farm and its batch of bearded bleaters, had transformed their little open-air barn into a festive winter bazaar. I phoned to alert Carol and John, who arranged to meet me there later.

From the hayloft, a trio of musicians played carols. Under the open sky a blazing bonfire warmed island neighbors bundled in mufflers and parkas this chilly December day. From a scattering of stands, vendors offered hot coffee drinks, fresh Lopez oysters, canned salmon, and locally grown steaks and chops. I bought fresh garlic-and-chive goat cheese and some goat-milk soaps from the farmer, Andre Entermann, who shared secrets of how he makes goat-milk caramel. You could have cut the bonhomie with a cheese knife.

Back at the Nuthatch, the gifts are wrapped. The tree is up. This afternoon I baked shortbread and whipped up a batch of chocolate mousse, which is chilling overnight in the fridge. (I only incinerated the chocolate in the microwave once before getting a second batch right.) Tomorrow, daughter Lillian and our friend, Lux, who recently bought and moved aboard our old sailboat, arrive to spend Christmas with me. On Boxing Day, the 26th, I head south to spend Carol Z’s birthday with her at a beach house on the coast.

Like I’ve said before, even if he lives on an isolated rock, no man is lonely with neighbors, family and loved ones like these. I hope you revel in such warmth this holiday.