February -  The Sound of Music

Sandhill cranes returning to Wisconsin

    February in Wisconsin is silent and cold.  This is the time of year when everyone is heartily sick of winter (except perhaps the ice fisherman and cross-country skiers) yet there is still at least a month to go before winter slowly and reluctantly releases its grip on the land.  Many folks take trips to Florida, Hawaii, or Jamaica - anywhere that's warm.  They return to grey skies and have to get used to cold all over again.

    Winter in general, and February in particular, is so very quiet.  Sounds are muffled during snow, sharp and piercing in clear air, or non-existent.  The sound of someone shoveling their sidewalk across the street after the snow stops falling can be heard from our house with the windows closed.   Snowblowers can be heard half a block away.  Most of our neighbors are up early and have their driveways and sidewalks cleared before we start ours, but I was able to bask in the light of virtue one day when I finished mine first.  

    Snowmobilers were frustrated by the lack of snow this year, and their season ended early.  I cannot say that I missed them.  In our area they roar across fields and woods, arrive at a local bar, imbibe, and then roar off again to the next bar.  There are always injuries, perhaps due to one too many beers, and a beautiful field of freshly fallen snow will soon be marred by the tracks of these machines.  I am not a fan.

    Despite the cold, snow, and ice, the Madison Home and Garden Show opened its doors to a public hungry for a little green and carrying dreams of gardens yet to come.  I spent three days with Scott Johnson of the Low Technology Institute carding and spinning locally-raised Icelandic wool and talking about the Institute's purpose and upcoming workshops, including mine on spinning.  

    Scott had made some items to sell to support the Institute.  Among them was a porridge he had made with wheat and rye that he had grown, harvested, steel cut, and baked himself with the addition of oats and flax seeds.  It is absolutely delicious, in part, I'm sure, because the ingredients are so fresh.  It sold out.  

    Scott also offered free seeds of a mustard/kale cross that spontaneously developed in his garden.  I've tasted it, and it is exactly what one would expect from kale and mustard greens: it's tasty but zippy.  Harvest is not fond of greens in general, with the exception of spinach, so it will be mine to enjoy alone.  I'm going to plant some carefully behind the barn in one spot and keep a close eye on it to nip the flower buds so that it doesn't crop up elsewhere in the garden.  I learned my lesson the hard way with comfrey, and I don't think I'll ever be able to get rid of it now.

    Discussions with people who are interested in what the Institute is doing are always interesting.  These folks are unconventional, creative thinkers who know an awful lot.    There was a man who makes oil from hickory nuts -  as rich and buttery as a good olive oil - and wild fruit jams including a wild plum jam that is even more delicious than my favorite apricot jam.  He also makes maple syrup and had little blueberry-sized nuggets of maple candy for sale.  Those had to come home with me to be enjoyed, Azerbiajani style, with a cup of tea (put the nugget in your mouth, and sip the tea around the nugget).  I had a long discussion with another fellow about growing unusual plants here in Wisconsin and was told that I could actually grow turmeric by simply getting a turmeric root and popping it into a large pot of garden soil.  I'm going to try it. An older woman and I engaged in an extensive discussion of wool and spinning wheels. She had a wheel that I have been craving from a particular maker, Jerry Jensen, but I managed to resist the temptation to buy it.  Just barely.

    The children who watched me spin were also interesting little people.  

        New spinning wheel, Katie, makes her debut performance

Kids usually get bored pretty quickly watching somebody card and spin wool, but these children were fascinated and wanted to know all kinds of details about what I was doing and how the wheel worked and proffered ideas of their own, many of which were spot on.  I was able to give away little samples of wool and spin up a small bit of yarn for each of them.  I love being able to do this.  Since the show, I have been recognized more than once as the "spinning lady."  I suppose Victorian clothing and a spinning wheel do tend to stick in the memory.                                                                                                              

    When I was not being pressed into service minding the booth while Scott taught his workshops, I was able to indulge myself shamelessly in shopping for my own garden.  My part of the vegetable garden is the place where all the "exotics" are grown.  Among other things, I bought two kinds of rat-tail radishes (these are wonderful pickled), two types of peppers that I hope to be able to dry and grind into my own paprika, pole beans to climb up the long, sturdy stems of the sunflowers we grew last year, and little melons.  Harvest had already purchased safflower seeds that I will grow into a poor man's saffron.  It's actually a pretty close imitation and far less expensive.  I couldn't resist the Wisconsin peony growers with their double-wide booth and bought what I hope will grow into three stunning plants.  I would have been shamed by Harvest had I passed over her beloved dahlias, so I came away with four bags of the dinner plate-sized ones.  After a certain point, I stopped looking at the sales receipts and just plunked down my card again and took another bag back to the booth.  It was fabulous.

    And so the days have passed waiting for the sun to melt the ice that seems to cling to the driveway and makes the trip out to the chicken coop a dangerous outing.  You know you've resigned yourself to cold when you don't even put on a coat to take such a short trip as long as it's close to 30 degrees outside. The girls all seem to be well, though I won't vouch for their happiness until I am able to take off the polythene sheeting so they can see the outdoors again at last.   There have only been two days in February that were warm enough to let them out for a short period, and despite the mud, they rushed out of the run to scratch around and see if there was trouble to be gotten into. They found it, choosing to scratch in the hay that covers the garlic and getting into the dog yard from which they didn't seem able to find the gate to get out again.  Attending to both of these problems entailed much prodding with a long pole and swearing.

    The seasonal turning point happened during the last week of February as I was driving home.  I saw a crane flying overhead.  Just one, but my heart lifted.  The next morning walking to the car I heard a bird.  Just one, but the music was sweeter than I can describe, breaking the silence of winter at last.  As I write this, I have been fortunate enough to have seen several pairs of cranes returning and one of the largest flocks of geese I've ever seen, streaming across the sky in wave after wave of wings.

    Will there still be cold and snow? Oh, yes.  March teases us with days that are warm enough to melt most of the snow followed by four inches of the stuff in an unlooked for storm.  I washed rugs and hung them out to dry, which takes some time, only to find them covered with snow the following morning.  Hanging up clothes is still hit or miss.  If it's too cold, they can sit out most of the day and still be damp enough to require a run through the dryer or a trip downstairs to hang them on the lines in the basement.  But the song of that bird, just the one small song, lets me know that spring is on the way, and I will soon see my beloved green grass and new leaves once more.  The best thing about a Wisconsin winter is spring.