“the leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly changes from the summer cottons into its winter woods.” -henry beston

“Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood.”

 Andy Goldsworthy

Here captured, is one of several special & original Willow Pond Farm members, who we miss terribly, taking advantage of a sunny day by taking a wee snooze in one of the Secret gardens. Whatever season it may be, naps in the sun are always appropriate.

nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own. charles dickens

See stars in the changing season and dance among them, shining.

Mary Anne Radmacher

January is here,
With eyes that keenly glow—
A frost-mailed warrior striding
A shadowy steed of snow.
–Edgar Fawcett, American poet (1847–1904)

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. -George Santayana

I feel lucky to be a Marylander. We’re fortunate to see the seasons bleed into one another while our landscape gradually shifts around us. As swift and grand an entrance Autumn makes, coaxing the annual crowds of “leaf peepers”, we double take as she coyly dissipates after a mere few weeks. As if she stole the stars above, she marks our rural roads with glints of crystalized trails, an invisible map only managed by the richness of the moon. The days grow longer, the fissures of ice have no choice but to surrender into puddles of mud. Spring saunters in, teasing us with bouts of warmth scattered among the loitering winter days. A familiar seasonal tale, that we all know too well. Our eyes flutter open to a sight for sore eyes. Trees grow obese with succulent emerald leaves that burst from countless buds. Tasseled sleeves fashion the arms of elder pines, bowing down as they touch the earth. Families of serpentine ivy crash and collide, choking neighboring geriatric trunks, suffocating any traces of dun and scorched flora; their chaotic embrace which leaves only the sweetest viridescent shades of summer behind.

The tonic twilight yawns, casting droplets of dew that radiate like a myriad of radiant garnet. Breaches in the clouds spill an invincible iridescence that clarifies and nurses the sear-spotted grounds, healing wounds from the retired scorched days of Summer and the dry afternoons of Autumn. She eventually succumbs, melting into the invincible glow of a horizon renewed. As nature things, we inherently form cocoons around these algid days, wrapping the season around us like a childhood blanket. Triggered, we lounge and mask in the familiar warmth of nostalgia, soaking up the season’s diffusing aura like a trite kitchen sponge. She retreats from the sky a wee bit earlier and rises now a wee bit later with every passing morning. Roused with the change, she wakes to the irenic songs and heavyhearted hymns that drown out thwarted apologies: whispers of seasonal remorse echoing an unquenchable thirst for the familiarity, forever pining for that forgotten sense; some though… are fortunate to taste that sweet sense of nostalgia with a ride down rural roads. She stretches and spreads her tepid rays that zigzag and seep into the cracks of black-out curtains.  She casts warm, threadbare-like shapes that creep up bedroom walls, beckoning us to rise and shine.

Canopies of archaic trees oscillate and kiss the ancient sky. Below, cliques of bare naked limbs gyrate to the requiem of nature. The sincerity of light stalks the woods edge, precipitating a reflection of scarlet hues. With arms wide open, we welcome the season change as the zephyr’s notes embrace us like an old friend. The migrating winds shift and collide, electrifying the mellisonant air, stimulating the deep, weary cells that lie dormant within us. The atmosphere’s modifying presence summons an abstruse awakening that cloaks the pomegranate stained sky which cradles the full Wolf Moon. It’s always the time of the season.🎴

For decades, the Almanac has referenced the monthly full Moons with names tied to early Native American, Colonial American, and European folklore. Traditionally, each full Moon name was applied to the entire lunar month in which it occurred and through all of the Moon’s phases—not only the full Moon.

the many faces of the wolf moon☾

It’s thought that January’s full Moon came to be known as the Wolf Moon because wolves were more likely to be heard howling at this time. It was traditionally believed that wolves howled due to hunger during winter, but we know today that isn’t accurate. Howling and other wolf vocalizations are heard in the wintertime to locate pack members, reinforce social bonds, define territory, and coordinate hunting.

Another fitting name for this full Moon is the Center Moon. Used by the Assiniboine people of the Northern Great Plains, it refers to the idea that this Moon roughly marks the middle of the cold season.

Other traditional names for the January Moon emphasize the harsh coldness of the season: Cold Moon (Cree), Frost Exploding Moon (Cree), Freeze Up Moon (Algonquin), and Severe Moon (Dakota). Hard Moon (Dakota) highlights the phenomenon of the fallen snow developing a hard crust.

Canada Goose Moon (Tlingit), Great Moon (Cree), Greetings Moon (Western Abenaki), and Spirit Moon (Ojibwe) have also been recorded as Moon names for this month.

the next full moon

January’s full Wolf Moon reaches peak illumination on Monday, January 13, 2025, at 5:27 P.M. EST. 

carnation & snowdrop

Stephanie is here to enhance & revivify these early summer days of our extraordinary, ordinary lives with fresh cuttings of the most magnificent flora Mother Nature has to offer us this season.