The big, beautiful February Poem

Crocuses, lambs, blood oranges, and light after swimming

How do these keep on coming around?? Here we are again and it is Big, Beautiful Poem of the Month time. All month you have been leaving your wonderful little titbits of seasonal noticings, your week-by-week minutiae, and now it is time to weave them into a picture of the month just past. As ever there is a wonderful sense of progression here, albeit halting and erratic, as befits the time of year. I am delighted as ever to have been able to include those from parts of the world that are not so nearby: what’s going on in the far north and in the mangrove swamps, and of course the southern hemisphere? I love this sense of the whole world turning through the seasons that we get here.

If you love marking and celebrating the months as they turn, do consider buying my book, The Almanac 2025, if you haven’t already. It’s really not too late to start, and it would make somebody a lovely spring equinox gift (ok that’s not a thing, but it COULD be…). And please do consider signing up for Scribehound Gardening, where I am one of 30 garden writers writing monthly, and where my lunar gardening sow along begins in earnest tomorrow, 1st March.

Anyway, without further ado, here is the Big, Beautiful February Poem. Please leave a comment to let me know if you like it, and give it a share too.

Walking to my parents through the churchyard at the same time every evening, it was light last night whereas it was still dark last week

Standing at the backdoor with a cup of tea to enjoy a perfectly timed sunset and dusk chorus featuring the first thrush I've listened to here for too many years.

Braving the cold breeze/the earliest daffodil/strikes a yellow pose

Spotting teeny tiny lupin leaves in the garden

Reconnecting with the garden. Removing old hellebore leaves, finding snowdrops I’d forgotten I planted, and hearing then seeing my first bee of the year

Watching the moon doing the do-si-do with planets and stars, first Venus and Saturn, then the Pleiades, then Jupiter

The frost-covered grass sparkling in the morning sun

The trees are lanky shadows and great pools of water spill onto the path

First lambs of the season, first big buzzy fly in the kitchen

In bed a lot with a horrid cold, but saw a perfect velvety blue sky one evening

The churchyard full of snowdrops and bright yellow aconites

I walk to work in twilight, and walk home in twilight

The brook is lined with emerging wild garlic

Clearing leaves and emptying pots of corpses of last summer and autumn’s blooms

Northern Michigan ice fishing on the frozen lake all day long. Catching pike on tip-ups, panfish on poles, with nips of whisky and schnapps as a warmer-upper, under a rare blue sky. A bald eagle soaring high overhead

You know spring isn't too far away when the geese return

The blackbird singing at the top of its lungs every dawn

Snowdrops, primroses and nodding hellebores cheering our wandering above the Lakes in sharp cold air. We feasted on clementines and Dundee cake

A cold-in-the-shade-mild-in-the-sun walk and then we huddled round the stove waiting for it to boil. The resultant coffee was an excellent prize and our first picnic of the year

Scarlet Elf Cups

Bringing in and arranging snowdrops and birch twigs for Imbolc, Candlemas and St Brigid’s Day

Two pairs of northern cardinals made a raucous morning appearance, dashing about through the cherry-pink flowers on the spicy jatropha tree outside the kitchen window

Making St Brigid’s crosses from rushes gathered outside

Two tiny lambs in the field next door looking like they weren't impressed with this cold weather

BLOOD ORANGES!!! At last! And the first Yorkshire forced rhubarb: SO good together

Mewing buzzards, singing nuthatch, song and mistlethrushes

Sparrows gathering bits of dried stems from the hydrangeas opposite my window

The unfurling of the first hellebores, delicate, drooping beauties

My long winter waterproof coat and new fingerless mitts when walking the dog on dark wet mornings

Blue skies, blooming bougainvillea, frothy almond trees in full blossom, and nine hours of sunshine in Gran Canaria

There is finally enough snow to snowshoe and it is glorious

Feet like ice blocks after cycling home from work, but it was still light and the birds are singing more and more

Spotting the perfect Valentine’s card for my fisherman fiancé: a couple in a sweet little boat at sea, holding fishing rods that says "of the billions of fish in the sea, I caught you and you caught me"

Neglected coats at playtime, children basking in warm rays of sun - blink to the following day: children wrapped in layers

Grey days with a few snowflakes, a pink band of light hovers near the horizon at sunset sandwiched between light and dark grey clouds

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Nine jars of homemade marmalade glowing like amber jewels

The first crocus

Cutting sarcococca from the plant by the back door and bringing it into the house

Brave bright green bulb shoots pushing through the sodden soil in my pots and troughs

A flock of gossiping redwings in the sycamore at the bottom of the garden

Organic blood oranges from Sicily. They are thin-skinned, tender and sweet and I shared them cut into crescents like after a netball match

A bold robin wanting a crumb of my fruitcake

A little herd of deer in the fields, and a mini starling murmuration

Catkins in the hedges and millions of the tiniest blossom buds all over one hedge

Low grey skies, layers and layers of clothing and the lights on all day indoors

Rain, clouds, murk and so much mud in the garden I am googling wellies for chickens

The moors have been shrouded in mist. The fizz of fine rain on the overhead pylon wires

A Valentines meal with my elderly mum, and making a heart shaped door wreath of catkins and pussy willow

Been wondering if my outdoor thermometer is stuck on 3*...

Mud on my running shoes

My horse starting to moult, bringing clumps of softness for the birds to begin building their nests

A huge fat bumblebee flying clumsily past me as I filled the bird feeders in the garden

Pulling on long johns each morning, enjoying the extra light from a bright white blanket of snow, despite the gray skies

The light is low but fires, candles and good books keep the cheer. My paper whites indoors are blooming, so perfumed days under the Snow Moon

Rosey sunsets of pink and red sometimes with blue swirls, bluebirds scouting the for the best nest real estate, barred owls calling in the wood 'Who cooks for...you? Who cooks for you...all'

Great tits arguing in the hedgerow, and the drumming of a woodpecker from across the fields

Full moon masked by snow-laden clouds

A trip to Painswick to look at the huge banks of snowdrops

The wild garlic shoots are up, and the first siskin and redpoll of the year have appeared in the garden

Amaryllis flower bulbs I received as a Christmas gift still blooming beautifully

I was glad of a near full moon to light the way back through low-hanging mangrove trees after a sunset paddle earlier in the week

Making the wonderful St Brigid’s cake from The Almanac

The sweet smell of Mahonia greeting me before I set eyes on it

Nettles are up as is the fresh growth of apple mint. Tea time

The scent of fresh compost, rotting leaves and newly chipped wood. Then indoors with a hot cup of tea and a couple of chocolate hobnobs

The first Pollen Market of the year - a monthly flower & plant market here in Sheffield

A Facebook post telling me Mothers Day is imminent

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In a sheltered corner of the churchyard on Lindisfarne the daffodils were out. Yellow bundles of sunshine on a very chilly day

A barn owl! Spied from my kitchen window as it drifted back and forth in the dusk across the field next door. I have never seen anything more ethereal and ghostly and I will never forget it

A warmer wind, and out in the garden I could smell the earth. The first frogs in the garden pond

No heated blanket required while I work this week. A deer walking up the middle of the road as I opened the curtains

I mentioned very tiny green buds on a hawthorn and the blackthorn last week and they are now half covered in flowers

Primroses popping up in earnest now. And the first coltsfoot!

Daffodils in a jar on the kitchen table

I deactivated Facebook and I felt much less guilt this half term from not seeing what everyone else was doing!

A snow and ice storm - every branch of every tree and bush encased in clear, glistening ice, and the packed snow sparkling with its coating, looking like a frozen ocean

Pretty sure I saw a tiny leaf of wild garlic…

Continuing to embrace fires with my book and a glass of red wine

Reluctantly admiring the skill of the magpies as they gather material and build their nest

Mimosa bringing a deep yellow glow and waft of perfume through the kitchen

Carrots, celeriac, squash, potatoes in the veg box. Winter soups and mashed veggies

Feeling very snug sitting in the library listening to the wind and rain batter the windows

The garden is alive with the birds who stayed away for the RSPB bird count! where were you longtailed tits, wren, dunnock, collared doves when I was counting you?

Still more snow, sleet, and thick ice but yesterday workers with ice choppers cleared the walkways

An explosion of crocus blooms in my garden like a patchwork. Absolutely uplifting, their little orange stamen glowing in the sun

School holidays have arrived bringing waves of seasonal visitors to the beaches, the wrack line littered with colorful plastic sand toys, children buried up to their necks, drip castles and seashell filled moats

Chartreuse pollen fallen from the sprigs of catkins I had brought into our conservatory

Startled (I think the feeling was mutual) by a prickly ball next to the doorstep. The first hedgehog in my garden in over a year

Sunshine. REAL sunshine. Not the pale, milky, questionable sunshine of winter but a proper break in the clouds, blue sky, warmth on my face moment with the happy sound of the neighbourhood kids playing in the street

A solitary daffodil

It was light when we came out of swimming lessons at 5.20pm

And that’s February all wrapped up! Please leave me a comment and give me a share. And let’s do it all again in March.