Nightshade

Our white fields now look like melted cheese, shiny in the cool morning before the sun sheds their topcoats of ice.  No longer fun and fluffy, the snow has turned stale and worn.

I don't watch much television, in part because after an hour or two I tend to feel like this snow, drooped over a chair, couch or daybed, melting into oblivion.  Forget couch potato; it's an insult to the firm, ripe, nutritious root crop that, according to my father, lacks only one essential protein.

March 17, St. Patrick's Day, is potato day in this planting zone.  The resilient potato doesn't seem to mind working toward daylight, sending robust shoots that burst onto the surface like little green fireworks and then, shriveling in surprise when Jack Frost pays a late visit, harnessing its stored energy to try again and again.  It will succeed.  I hesitate to imagine what a potato could do if all its eyes could see.

"I like this picture," says Virginia, "except, in comparison, I feel like a small fry."

"No way," I say.  "You're a mover and a shaker.  Sin Valley can never forget you."

"Maybe, maybe not," say Virginia.  "When I first looked down on the valley, I had no idea my roots there where so deep."

"Ever since, Ms. Potato Head," I say, "they've spread like fingerlings."