Water is the Word for Winter

Half Moon? What!? Why?
So many others do bimonthly newsletters on the Full and New Moon. They always get the attention. They always get the fandom. They always get the importance. The Half Moon, also called quarter moon, but when you look at it with your actual eyeballs it isn’t quarter, its half! (it’s a celestial pet peeve of mine) Half Dark. Half Light. And each switching sides every time. One time growing in light, the other time growing in dark. It isn’t the pause between the inhale and the exhale, it *is* the inhale and the exhale. It is the middle road.

In northern winters, water is everywhere. We literally walk through it. We drive through it and move it out of our way. Our world becomes water.

Even as the trees, shrubs, and plants sleep through the season, water is draped over them, wrapped around their trunks, and layered over their roots.

The land becomes covered in water in a time that the plants don't need it. 

But there it sits, waiting for the warmth that will melt it so that it can flow down, 
down into the soil.

​But until then, they wait, as we all do while we trudge
and shovel
and push
and plow.

But until then, they sleep, as we plan
and dream
and seed
and feed the fire.

Even the soil waits under the water, held warm by it's loft.
Not sleeping but moving slowly, feasting on the fallen bits from last summer.

Under their blanket of snow, the worms, beetles, salamanders, microbes, and bacteria are busy slowly turning what used to be plants into food for plants.

Those tiny composters rely upon the cover of frozen water with insulating trapped air to keep the frigid temps from putting them into a frozen sleep.

For the plants and leave growth of next summer depend on  the dead plants and fallen leaves of last summer to feed them.

That bright spring green is fed by the rotten brown of fall.

​The light and heat of summer is fed by the cold water of winter.

But until that light and heat returns, we live in
a world of water
a world of winter
where we soak up the little rays of sun we are gifted,
the same rays that bounce and sparkle off the land covered in fluffy frozen water.

For just as the Moon carries the light of the Sun through the night, the snow carries all that life needs to grow in spring through the winter.

Future Learning Opportunities

• Are you ready to step into the wilderness?
  
  Saturday, March 4th: Free the Seeds in Kalispell
  I'll be giving a presentation on Edible Garden Weeds: The Accidental Harvest.
  Stop by for all the free presentations, info booths, and, of course, free seeds!
  
  Tuesdays in May: Troy Adult Education Program
  I'll be teaching a Spring Wildflower & Native Plant ID class on Tuesday evenings in May and early June. Two indoor classes to cover the basics and two outings to meet all the wonderful spring plants around Troy. Sign-ups to be announced later.
  
  Seasonal On-Farm Foraging Classes: Dragon's Breath Farm
  Come learn about commonly available seasonal edible plants in our region. We'll meet the plants, learn about their edible and also medicinal qualities, proper foraging etiquette, and taste the wonders of the wilds. I'll be updating the schedule as we get closer to spring.

Where to find it all?
The Mini Microgreen Market of course, running all winter!
Thursdays from 12-1pm at the Libby Chamber of Commerce
*come inside where it's warm & toasty while the micros are chill in their mini cooler*

The Sweetheart Market
February 11th from 10-6pm
at the Ponderosa Room in Libby