February - from the 'Year at Robie Creek' series

Originally published in the:

Life is returning to Robie Creek. It’s not visible yet, still buried under several inches of snow or lying dormant within leaf buds nowhere near bursting, but the quality of the light has changed, and some of the critters comfortably housed indoors are experiencing growth spurts and changing from quiet winter ruminations to louder, more insistent mating calls. Dude, Jr. says, when the frogs are calling back and forth like Catholics during the litanies, “What do you think they’re saying?” These are teaching moments, and this is our school:

“What do you think they’re saying?”

“Well, notice how the sounds they’re making are a little different than the sounds they usually make?”

“Yeah, they’re being really loud, and kinda squeaky.”

“Their sounds are telling the lady frogs which one of them (we have three males) is more her type, and letting them know that pretty soon it will be time to lay eggs.”

We go on to talk about how, even though the day is only a little bit longer – and why that is – the angle of the sunlight signals their bodies to produce different hormones, and how those frogs that live outside will experience the same thing, but not until the snow melts and the mud in which they’ve spent the winter encased starts to thaw. We talk further about how the same kind of frogs that live further south are, like ours, already starting this process, and that’s a part of that day’s science lesson. He enjoys physics more than biology at this point, but the subject isn’t important. What matters is that he’s always learning something, and mostly learning how to learn, maintaining the natural love of learning that all children, and all people, have when it doesn’t become onerous.

“Why is Silver,” (a goldfish that started out half-white), “mostly orange now?”

(Genetics, guanine, xanthophores, erythrophores, sunlight, etc.)

“Why are the cat’s tongues rough?”

(Spines with keratin, like hair and nails, which elicited an initial response of, “Weird!”)

“How am I balancing like this?”

(Fulcrums, distribution of weight and mass, the laws of physics.)

The questions are fewer now because I tend to be long-winded and detail-oriented in my responses, and he prefers to just look things up for himself, but he’s still excited when he figures out something new, and comes to share the facts he’s learned, maybe get help finding more information. He helps Dad with the budget from time to time, which has made him conservative in his spending, and they do the snow-blowing together, which makes him curious about how and why some snow is great for the snowmen they build afterward and why some just falls apart.

Even TV contributes, and his games. When Modern Marvels had an episode about how snowflakes are formed, he was engrossed. When Gravity Falls showed a cartoon pterodactyl he wanted to know more about the real thing so we spent a good hour just looking up what science has determined to be (probably) true about these, it turns out, rather fascinating creatures. He chose to buy himself a lifetime membership to JumpStart, which is intentionally educational, but most of his games educate more ‘by accident’. (One thing he’s learned that he’ll probably never have to use is exactly what to do in case of a zombie apocalypse; despite the seeming uselessness of that information, much of it would also apply in any major natural-disaster scenario, the possibility of which is nowhere near as remote as an onslaught of the walking dead.)

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So anyway, spring isn’t exactly springing yet, more like rolling over under the covers and mumbling about the light being in its face. It’ll be cold for another couple months, and dark before ten o’clock for about as long. Maybe we’ll get more snow; most years I’d say for sure we will but we’re in the West where precipitation has been in short supply. Still, the earth is warming ever-so-slightly, energy is rising, yellow sunshine and the winter blues are combining to portend the imminence of springtime greenery. Optimism is rising, and will see us through the rest of this season’s dark, cold days. In the meantime there are lessons to be learned and taught, snowmen to be built, critters to be tended, and home fires to be kept burning, which makes me think of Don’s barrel stove from last month’s issue of this Gazette, and of why we love heating with wood.

Wood heat has a permeating quality like sunlight due to its infrared output. It penetrates to the core and warms the bones by pushing moisture inward rather than drawing it out and evaporating it like heating appliances that work in other temperature ranges. (Think of the difference in the way cooking in an oven tends to dry meat out, but cooking in a barbecue drives juices in.) At the same time, a wood-heating appliance with a glass door blocks most of that good infrared heat from warming the room and sends it straight up the chimney. Don’s barrel stove and other all-metal wood-heat devices like our cast-iron fireplace insert radiate that heat much more effectively and warm the folks enjoying it thoroughly and well. We hope you’re staying warm this winter, too, especially as such bitter cold has been affecting much of the country.

February for us here in Robie Creek is a time of anticipation, of enjoying the lengthening days ‒ crisp and cold as they’ll remain until earth and atmosphere become heat-saturated ‒ and of looking forward to spring rain and bits of green poking through leftover snow in a couple months. By the time we meet again many of you will probably already be seeing new life and leaving behind the harshness of this winter. Until then as always, from our creek to Owl Creek, may your days be full of light and life and everything excellent. Take care, be well, have fun.

With much love,

Peace & the Dudes Jaway

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