“Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”
J.R.R Tolkien
It was a quiet holiday season here in the valley.
Foolishly I left the beavers to their own devices thinking that maybe they would take a break over Christmas. Of course they didn’t do this and their intentions to expand their empire were more than obvious when I finally checked up on them.
It was disconcerting to say the least to see signs of dam building on dry land. The beavers have been attempting to dam up the whole valley where my cabin is situated. Any beaver dam starts with a series of sticks stuck in the ground facing upstream. Then mud and branches and vegetation are added to make a very solid construction. Nature’s engineers are very thorough in weaving all their building materials together.
The original dam is very large and so is the pond behind it. I don’t think that they need the rest of the valley so I undo some of their work every few days. So far I have managed to keep my cabin from floating away.
Closer to the house there has been a major change in the landscape. Two very large Ash trees that were killed by Emerald Ash Borer were taken down recently. I’m still getting used to the big spaces where the trees used to be. Close to where one of the trees was there is at least a small Horse Chestnut. I’m hoping that this tree will now have some breathing room and will grow up more quickly.
I swore that I would never again share my winter living space with a large Nicotine plant. Last winter I had a seedling of N. sylvestris that was at least four feet tall by February when the days started getting longer. It had been rescued in the fall and I was curious to see what it would do. What it did was grow into a monster plant that bloomed all last summer on the porch.
This fall another Nicotine plant appeared at the end of August and I brought it in for the winter. Curiosity made me do it once again. I knew that it wasn’t sylvestris but had no idea what it actually was. A few people who looked at it thought it was field tobacco. But when it flowered inside in November the flowers were dark pink. So not field tobacco and thankfully not as big as the sylvestris monster plant. I always enjoy a good plant mystery even if I complain about it.
I was surprised to see another rescue plant come back to life recently. I was given a rather sad looking asparagus fern. A friend had gotten a lot of plants that were used on a movie set and she didn’t want the fern. It had been left outside for at least two frosts so I didn’t have much hope for it. After I brought it home, all its leaves fell off. I forgot about it for awhile and was surprised to see it had grown a lot of healthy new leaves. It cheered me up immensely to see new green shoots appearing in dark December.
Charles Lamb said something about no one ever regarding the first of January with indifference. I know that when we finally reach that date and the days are getting brighter and longer, I start the long countdown to spring.
I’m making lists of what I want to grow in the coming season and then pruning them down to something more realistic.
So far a lot of this winter has felt more like March than real winter. I only want enough snow to cover the garlic which I am too lazy to mulch until spring.
The Roman god Janus who gave his name to January has two faces which look to the past and to the future. I don’t think most of us want to spend too much time reflecting on the year that was for obvious reasons.
Let’s just think about all the possibilities for the year ahead.
Happy New Year everyone.
By Jill Williams
