January - from the 'Year at Robie Creek' series

Originally published in the:

This part of the season is referred to as the ‘dead’ of winter for good reason. Even right now, sun shining brightly off beautiful snow-covered pines, it’s preternaturally quiet, a quiet we notice here because it only happens on the rare occasion when the Creek freezes entirely over and there’s a blanket of snow on the ice. This is the time when the mettle is tested of first-winter Creekers, and they’re deciding whether or not there’ll be a second for them. These mountains, and all of Idaho really, are places where it’s either for someone or it’s not. There are places in the world where people can go and stay for a while, live there but not particularly want to be there, just find respite and happen to stay for a while, enjoying it well enough but not passionate to stay. These are not those places. Without a deep desire to be here, these places will not appeal for long.

It’s not just winter, there’s a mindset required. People take root here, or wash away like early-summer algae. Don’t get me wrong, that Vaucheria is lovely, the fish find it a delicious treat, and should we ever find ourselves hungry, washed and dried it would make a nutritious snack, a gift from the Creek for keeping it clean and in good condition. But it doesn’t last once the summer gets hot, won’t show up again until those perfect and short-lived post-winter conditions return. The same is true of people for whom this isn’t the right atmosphere. They’ll come and enjoy some time here, we’ll be enriched by their presence, and then they’ll move along and leave us who’ve become established to the business of what needs doing.

This time of year, most of what needs doing will be done indoors. Instead of going out and gathering fresh plants for the critters who need or want them, I dig into a bag of dried thimbleberry, catnip, dandelion, and mullein leaves harvested around the first frost, when the seeds have set and the roots are as fat as they’re going to get in anticipation of the lean times ahead. I keep a supply of thimbleberry stems in the planter box under the front window through winter, along with dried mullein stalks as occasional treats for the degu and hamster. The leaves that remain also provide a handy overwintering place for the flying and crawling insects that will in turn feed Dude, Jr.’s frogs and salamander from the time they’ll start appearing in a couple of months until they disappear again next October or November. Once enough moths are active, the bats will wake from their long nap and entertain us evenings with their graceless, comic, but oh-so-deceptively nimble flight. As they’ve become used to us over the years, they’ve taken to brushing our heads with a wingtip every chance they get when we go out to collect a small portion of what they obviously consider to be their food. Always just a wingtip, enough to startle anyone who’s not used to it, but not enough to distress anyone who is.

But I digress: For now it’s a leaf or three in each fish tank and the rodent habitat once or more a week, to provide both greens and tannins (the latter being useful in chelating heavy metals, not just out of water, but our bodies, too – drink citrus juices or white wine with meals, and tea, red wine, and coffee between, as the juices help our bodies to extract and retain more nutrients, and the tannins help bind and remove some of the less desirable tagalongs), one for the crickets and mealworms that feed the denizens of our paludarium while things are ‘dead’ outside, one for the slugs that share that paludarium, and maybe some for us when we’re craving a shot of summer, ground and brewed like any other tea. Thimbleberry is an astringent, good for the digestion, dandelion a diuretic, catnip is a febrifuge and decongestant with a mild sedative action, mullein is an anti-inflammatory, and each of these offer a suite of other properties that complement and support what might be considered their main actions. I’m blessed to live up the road from a lady who’s gifted in her ability to create and understand various extractions and oils and tinctures, so on the rare occasion we need something more concentrated than a tea of leaves harvested past their peak we always know who to call. There’s someone like that in your area, too, perhaps even you, who’s keeping alive the herbal crafting traditions and might be willing to teach a thing or two as Gina has taught me.

So January on Robie Creek is when we get reacquainted with ourselves, enjoy what it is we like most about us, and spend time considering where it might be time for change. The harvest is over, the season in which autumn’s bounty is shared has passed, and it’s time to settle in and wait for spring. I’m told that my farming grandfather would sequester himself this time of year with a Bible and the Encyclopedia Britannica. I can relate to that; I often think he’d’ve loved to have lived long enough to see the Internet, and on the heels of that thought it will occur to me, especially on days like this when the silence is amplified by it’s own completeness, how peaceful it must’ve been without the bustle of constant input. I can understand how cabin fever would sometimes set in, but it’s such a natural rhythm, one mostly forgotten in modern life, to slow down with the world and simply contemplate whatever comes to mind… We’d do well today to take a minute for that once in a while and now is as good a time as any, so until next we meet, from our Creek to yours, be well, be safe, be happy, have fun.

With much love,

Peace & the Dudes Jaway

Also check out the weekly OCG podcast at: