Naturalist Edwin Way Teale connected with nature throughout the year. I have added Circle of the Seasons: The Journal of the Naturalist’s Year to my daily reading. In the selection for January 4, he describes midwinter as “a pause in the turning wheel of life” while “the whole circle of the seasons stretches away before us as we view the year from the cold plateau of January” (p. 2).

I don’t know if Teale was a gardener or not. While gardening life slows down this time of year, we never stop completely. I planted garlic in a raised bed in December. We ordered onion sets last fall and will be building a raised bed for their arrival in February. The seed catalogs are arriving daily.

Nature doesn’t stop completely either. As I was taking pictures the other day, I discovered Nigella seedlings in a pot. Also known as Love In a Mist, they are one of my favorites, with sweet blue blossoms that turn to balloon like seed pods, self-sowing and sprouting in the fall, surviving through the winter, then blooming with the first warmth of spring.