Breaking the Ice to Offer the Growing A Drink

I'll admit to apprehensions.  Last night was the first serious freeze since the seeds went down in the greenhouse, and as watering time arrived I entered with trepidation.  I had it on good authority that the new row cover fabrics I exchanged for last year's space heater would keep the emerging little stems protected, but I had my doubts along with my hopes. Sixteen-degrees, after all, is colder than I would want to be out there trying to grow.  Clumsily opening the door with gloved hands, I found no encouragement in the frozen jugs of rainwater stored inside.  It wasn't hard to see my breath, even with the full sun high over head.  Gingerly, I pulled back the covers expecting wilted, frost-bitten devastation.

Instead, I found lush and vibrant leaves, stems more than holding their own.  Even the wispy scallions seem no worse for the wear, their tendril-like shoots standing tall and upright.  The kale, at first rounded and smooth, is developing the crenellated edges for which it is known; the sorrel, slower but holding its own.

It is an amazing thing to watch -- forces of nature competing.  A tug-of-war between temperature and photosynthesis; growth and decay; quite literally life and death.  On Christmas Eve, with a fistful of candlelight in an otherwise darkened space, it is customary to hear the biblical testimony that, "the light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it."

Perhaps the greenhouse is occasioning a new metaphorical witness:  "the life grows on in the coldness, and the coldness has not overcome it."

It is a hopeful promise, in the face of almost certain coldness still to come over the course of these winter months.  Snow will no doubt eventually blanket the roof and Tir and I will have to clear a path to the door.  In the face of it, I will nevertheless more optimistically apply my gloved hands to the balky latch and push inside.  And with a sturdier confidence, push back the fabric to offer the living -- the intrepidly thriving -- a drink.