The first real snow came overnight. By morning, the waystation was quiet in a way it only gets in winter — no rustling, no insects, just a few inches of white sitting on top of everything we planted this past spring. It's easy to look at a snow-covered field and see nothing happening. But underneath the frost line, the native milkweed roots we established this season are dormant, not dead. They've stored enough energy from the fall to push back up in May, and when they do, they'll come up stronger than the first-year plants did. We counted 23 distinct milkweed crowns before the ground froze. That number should double by midsummer. The monarchs, of course, are long gone — somewhere over the Sierra Madres in Mexico right now, clustered in oyamel fir forests at elevation. It's a strange thing to stand in a frozen field in Michigan and know that the butterflies who visited here in August are still alive, thousands of miles away, waiting out the same winter we are. We'll use these slower months to plan Year Two: expanding the waystation's eastern border, adding a patch of wild bergamot, and applying for our second Monarch Watch certification. There's also a school group from Saline interested in a spring visit once the milkweed breaks ground. For now, we're letting it rest. The field has earned it.
