Dead of Winter, Promise of Spring

It's the dead of winter, and not much is growing in our gardens, but I thought I'd post some pictures of our various 4-season gardening contraptions.

Above is a simple, temporary cold frame made from straw bales and salvaged plexiglass windows; carrots and spinach are growing inside. And below are some shots from inside our hoophouse, including a close up of one of the 2000+ babies growing in there: Merveille des Quatre Saisons lettuce, a cold-hardy French heirloom.

In ancient, earth-based cultures in climates similar to ours (specifically: Northern Europe and the British Isles), this time of year was seen as a turning point. The snow is thick on the ground, but the earth underneath holds the possibility of Spring. Our bones are chilled, and we are weary with winter, but we know Spring's green shoots are coming. Pregnant farm animals literally contain new life at this time of year, the babies that will be born in the Springtime. Even when its hard to imagine Spring, we know it will come.

The ancients conceived of this time of year as the time when the goddess changed shape from her winter form --crone, hag, wizened and wise and bony old woman--to her spring form--maiden, bride, supple and fresh and pregnant with possibilities. Candlemas was the Christian appropriation of festivals honoring this transition, and Groundhog Day is the modern remnant of these ancient rites. Neopagans observe the transition as "Imbolc," but it was called by a variety of names by the peoples who celebrated the moment of turning from winter to spring. Whatever we call it, I'm grateful for this time of year -- when the bright blue sky and warm sun reminds me, even on cold winter days, that Winter won't last forever.

I'm grateful for the ways we capture the warmth and light, even in Wintertime. I mean this on a literal level: with coldframes and hoophouses and row cover and passive solar technologies. And I mean it figuratively: with the sickness and sadness in our household (see my last post on Frankie the cat), sparks of sweetness and levity are all the more precious.

In the dead of winter, there is light inside our cold frames and the hoophouse. Christopher cleaned out the ashes in our wood cookstove, and a new fire is lit. Our fridge is full of jars of seeds ready for Spring planting. Tiny carrots and kales and chards and beets and winter-hardy salad greens are growing in various contraptions throughout the garden. And we're holding on to a tiny light of hope for our beloved Frankie, for whatever may be for her.

So happy Imbolc, Candlemas, Groundhog Day, Bridget's Day, whatever you want to call it...and here's to cleaning out the ashes and lighting new fires.

Frankie

I suddenly realized today that I hadn't posted anything for the whole month of January. It's been an extraordinarily full month, teaching, working, setting up the hoophouse--and then the going got really rough in the past week:

Frankie (shown here healthy and happy last summer) has kidney failure, suddenly. She's not an elderly cat (we estimate eight or nine) and she's always been healthy until recently. This week Frankie's been in and out of the animal hospital, and now is home with us, woozy and frail. The vet says it's very unlikely she'll recover.

I can't help but hope for a miracle cure--partly because I'm in denial, partly because I seem constitutionally unable to not hope even when hope defies logic, partly because I don't trust authority, and partly because I always want to believe there's a way to fix problems, find solutions, make it right.

Of course have been frantically researching all kinds of herbal, homeopathic, and nutritional approaches to feline renal failure, and reading accounts of people who have nursed their cats through kidney failure, some claiming to have seen full recoveries. Maybe we'll have time to try some of these remedies -- stinging nettle seeds, fish oils, various raw meat concoctions -- or maybe not. In the meantime, I'm hoping that the touch, affection, sunlight slanting across the floor, warmth of the woodstove, and other comforts of home are providing some healing, or at least some peace.

I know we all die someday. And cats' lifespans are short compared to ours. My friend KT says it's a design flaw. But I sure do wish Frankie could stay a while longer. I love the heck out of her, and it's hard to imagine this household without her in it. Please send her your love, dear readers.

Garlic harvest

Last night we started digging up the garlic, and as luck would have it, Melissa was here to school us in a far better method than we used last year for hanging it up to dry.

While I was cooking up chard, kale, mustards, and herbs to toss with pasta for dinner, Christopher and Melissa tied up all of the Inchelium Red and Polish Hardneck. Bud kept us entertained with a running stream of conspiracy theory and Mr. T videos.

Inchelium Red

This morning Christopher pulled the next variety of garlic, Transylvanian Artichoke, which turned out to be whoppingly huge.

Frankie looked on, stoned on catnip, from an adjoining garlic bed.


Frankie tripping

While C. pulled Transylvanian, I planted the last of the zephyr squash starts with Black Oil Seed sunflowers and Cherokee black beans in the bed where the Inchelium and Polish garlic had come out last eve. We used this same succession planting last year--the timing works well and the legumes seem to build the soil after the garlic is done.
Transylvanian Artichoke