So-Slow Book Club, Week 7: The solace of seeds

Longing for snow in a long "false spring", plus praise for the Baker Seed catalog

This post is part of a year-long exploration of The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl. Posts and discussion threads are free to access when they fall on the first weekend of the month; upgrade your membership to get the full experience.

The weather has been, in a word, weird this year. Here in southern Michigan, true winter weather was late to arrive, but dumped on us in a frenzy and a hurry…then mostly retreated. Looking out my windows this morning I see frost on the ground instead of snow; later, when I go for a walk in sunny, 42-degree-F weather, even the frost will be gone. It’ll feel more like spring than winter.

In Week 7 of The Comfort of Crows, Margaret Renkl remarks on this change in how we experience this season, writing: “Even the most ideologically stubborn among us have finally come to understand how fragile winter truly is.”

In northern Michigan, businesses who rely on snowfall to drive their season are in trouble. And this winter, a smattering of think pieces speculated about the possibility of a future without snow.

The idea makes me feel panicky; the same way I felt panicky when stores and restaurants started closing in early Covid. I’ve lived most of my life in places where an entire season is defined by the presence, or at least possibility, of snow; a thick blanket of it softening the otherwise dreary landscape and adding contrast to the gray.

To be clear, I fully expect there to be snow on that frost-covered ground again this year. We’ll almost certainly have a February blizzard, likely a March blizzard, and perhaps even an April blizzard. But this year we’ve had a lot of winter days that feel like spring days. Those who dislike snow love it. To me, it’s just disorienting.

It’s strange how this year, after a mostly springlike winter, I feel I need real spring more than ever—if only to remind me that the cycles of nature are still in play.

Like many of us, Renkl finds solace of all sorts in seed catalogs and the hope they represent. “I was so absorbed by the task of planning for spring that I completely forgot how long the wait for true springtime would be,” she writes. “I was thinking about the scent of turned earth, the feel of damp soil. I was feeling grateful that nature always renews itself, given even half a chance.”

Before Christmas, I ordered a free catalog from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. Their catalogs are a feast of colors and textures; vegetables and fruits and flowers you can practically touch and smell and taste. My freebie should be here any day, but I’m considering going to the store today to purchase their expanded Whole Seed Catalog—so badly do I crave that taste of spring (plus, it’s worth the $15.)

There is much happening in the larger world that is completely outside my control. But panic, I remind myself, is never helpful. Solace can only be found in digging in (perhaps literally) and doing what we can in the areas we can see and touch and smell.

I think, for me, that will start today with a romp through the seed catalog. How about you?