Before the Martins Return
Gourds, grief, a full moon, and the work of caring for what belongs.
Today’s post is magazine-style, with many small pieces rather than one long essay. I hope this report finds you well, energized, and at peace.
🦬 Farm Report
Our line of martin gourds, hanging between the house and a cow pasture, were in need of repair. After a few years a real gourd begins to crack and break. They can become dangerous for chicks and parents.
In our part of the world, martin scouts show up in early February. A scout arrives to check out housing arrangements and is available to greet the large migrations when they arrive.
In advance of the scouts, we have renovated our strings of gourdhouses. I say “we,” but I mean my husband, Raven.
He found gourds for sale near Wrens, Georgia. He brought them home, cut a 2⅛- inch hole in the side of each, drilled drain-holes in the bottoms, and hung them so their entryway is tilted slightly downward, protected from rainwater. He painted each one white, to reflect the hot summer sun.
We want them safe for martin babies.
The gourds hang from a metal cable. They look like prayer flags.
Imagine a spring day. The ground is a carpet of henbit, toadflax, tiny yellow clovers, dandelions. Try to ignore the stinging nettle that got introduced to our farm that, for a couple of months in spring, makes walking barefoot difficult. You are standing beside a large basket of laundry, hanging it to dry. The baby is strapped into a baby swing hanging from a pecan limb a few feet away. You give her a big push and she sails toward the sky. You hang a few onesies and towels, fast, as she swings, her arcs getting slower and slower, until you need to push her again.
Around you the purple martins are singing. They are soaring and diving, feeding on the wing. They are appearing at gourd-holes with sprigs of hay in their beaks. By mid-summer their fledglings will be peeking out the entranceways, ready to leap out over the pasture, strengthening themselves for their first migration to South America.
They own the place as much as you. They know it more intimately than you. They have traveled every inch of it. They know where to find water (in the marsh, in the cow troughs, at the pond down the road.) They know the songs to sing when the sun is rising and when it is setting.
We don’t have television at the farm. We don’t have a streaming service.
We have the brilliant purple martin song for hanging laundry.
🦬 Phenology
Killdeer are combing the pastures inch by inch. With no indication they have been startled, they will suddenly fly up, screeching, move sideways as a flock and alight again. I don’t understand their motivations, but I keep watching, trying to make sense of it all.
This week a doe emerged from the treeline to the north with two yearlings. Before hunting season, the little herd on our farm had reached five. I’m glad three remain. Now that the season is over, they are coming out of hiding.
I have one little patch of wild violets under a crepe myrtle tree in the side yard. They are in flower.
The daffodils and paperwhites, although not native, began blooming before last week’s ice and snow, and the 19-degree weather did not faze them. The last few days we’ve had a warming spell, with highs in the 70s Fahrenheit. The daffodils are coming on strong.
On the first day of the year I watched a loggerhead shrike outside the kitchen window. It is still hanging around. It appears to be searching for insects among the dry seedheads of winged aster.
The pastures are brown, the fall flora lingers in leafless stalks and brown seedheads, the trees stick out from the ground bare-limbed, and mostly the birds are silent. This morning a red-shouldered hawk flew in a wave-like pattern, up and down, across the farm, hollering loudly.
🦬 Full Moon
This month’s full moon was so large and golden—thrilling!—that I find myself grieving its wane. I’ve never felt this way before. I love the moon in all its phases. But no. This week it has been a beacon. It brought a sense of stability. It felt like a gift sent to me personally.
It was full on Sunday, Feb. 1, at 5:09 pm Eastern Time. I was teaching online, the Journaling Place course, at the exact time it was perfectly full. One hundred fifty of us were gathered together, making Wisdom Quadrants about place.
This February moon, depending on your culture, is known as Snow Moon or Deep Snow Moon, also Ice Moon, Sleet Moon, Makes Branches Fall In Pieces Moon (Abenaki), Frost Sparkling in the Sun Moon (Arapaho), and When Trees Crack Because of Cold Moon (Lakota). Also Midwinter Moon, Moon of Big Famine (Choctaw) and Hunger Moon (Cherokee.)
Those names do not apply to my place and life. I wrote about choosing new names in the post, “Why I’m Naming the Full Moons Myself.”
In her last newsletter, writer Amie Whittemore of Dream Geographies names her February moon “Song in the Snow Moon.” She wrote, “I heard someone singing before dawn as they walked through our recent heavy snows. It felt both mournful and hopeful.”
This year my name for February’s full moon is “Grieving You Before You Are Gone Moon.”
I am feeling the same kind of grief for the baby. She has learned to balance without holding on, and any day she will be taking her first tiny, shaky steps. I have loved her babyhood. I have loved being a mother again, this late chance. I have loved holding her—carrying her around—strapping her to my belly—packing her on my back.
Soon she will be a toddler, and I will never be a mother with a baby again. You cannot even imagine how tightly I am holding on to these precious, brightly lit, golden days.
🦬 Terroir Seeds Needs a Grower for Seminole Pumpkins
Last week I highlighted five seed companies that I, as a Southern gardener, mostly use. I added a bonus company, Terroir Seeds | Underwood Gardens.
In spring 2022, Stephen Scott, who with his wife Cindy owns and operates Terroir, wrote and asked if I minded if they offered Seminole pumpkins in their store. They had read about the pumpkin in The Seed Underground.
Of course I wouldn’t mind. That amazing food is part of the human commons, and my goal has been to help it along.
Terroir Seeds, as Stephen told me, “works exclusively with open-pollinated and heirloom seeds, mostly unique, with amazing flavors, and with fascinating stories.”
I promised to supply seeds. And did. Terroir was able to offer the pumpkin for a couple of years, but they lost the grower.
This week Stephen wrote to thank me for mentioning Terroir in the post. About the Seminole pumpkin, he wrote, “As you noted, the challenges with growers are the ‘real work’ of seed stewardship—the biology is easy; the logistics are the hard part.”
Then he had an idea. One of my readers might like to grow the pumpkin for Terroir. Terroir has the seed stock and the expertise.
Somewhere in your audience might be an experienced grower who has the land and the itch to do this—they just need the guidance.
If you are willing to ask your readers if someone wants to grow the Seminole pumpkin, then put them in touch with us to explore the possibilities.
This turns it into a community preservation project.
Thank you for considering. The pumpkin grows beautifully in Zones 9 & 8 & 7. In my zone, I’m able to get two crops. The pumpkin is small and compact, tasty and sweet, and can last a year in storage. In the field, it’s resistant to the wilts that are destroying squashes.
Stephen may be reached at stephen @ underwoodgardens.com.
🦬 You Have One More Week to Enter a Seed Book Giveaway
If you make a comment on the post, Season of Seeds: My Top 5 Seed Companies, you will automatically be entered in a giveaway. It includes a copy of my book The Seed Underground and a packet of home-grown Seminole pumpkin seeds. Leave a comment—any kind of comment—on the post. On Feb. 12, 2026, I will put all commenters into an online Random Picker, which will choose one recipient. Today, the post has seventy comments.
🦬 Send Me a Secret on a Postcard
I would love to receive a secret from you, written on a postcard. Don’t include identifying information—no name or return address. If a postmark reveals a hint about where you live, I will redact it.
Thanks to everyone who has mailed a postcard already. I hope you’ve seen Installment #1 and Installment #2, each with ten poignant, powerful secrets and with equally poignant messages back from readers. For the duration of the project, I will post in batches of ten or so.
Any postcard you choose to use is fine.
If you create your own, the standard size is 4 x 6 inches, on paper that is cardstock or thicker. That size requires a postcard stamp, currently $.53.
A postcard can be any size, of course. Those larger than 5 inches x 7 inches will require a letter stamp of $.73.
And my mailing address is...
Janisse Ray
895 Catherine T. Sanders Road
Reidsville, GA 30453
🦬 What I’m Listening To
Bruce Springsteen singing “Streets of Minneapolis.” Many thanks to Deb Bowen for sending it. I had not heard about the song, and I wept bitter tears as I listened.
🦬 What I’m Reading
I recently finished Heart the Lover by Lily King. It’s a glorious novel written in second person—you. “You” is a past lover. This is a poignant, extremely well-written, mesmerizing love story. I devoured it. Here Julianne Buonocore reviews it in her stack, Friday Night Readers.
At the recommendation of many people and after hearing Australian writer Helen Garner interviewed on The Shift with Sam Baker Podcast, I read The Children’s Bach. It’s short, quick to read, and absolutely remarkable. I plan to read more of Garner’s work. (The Shift for midlife women is one of the stacks I invest in.)
I found Writing Creativity and Soul by Sue Monk Kidd in the new books section of the Saint Simons Island Public Library, when I was visiting to celebrate my birthday this week. (Who goes to a library to celebrate their birthday?) I was on page 42 by the time we arrived home. Little Fawn was completely annoyed by my submersion into a book. What I’m finding most interesting is that Sue includes mystery in her manual, the thing I call the “mysterium” in Craft & Current. Finally, writers are talking about that third space that is beyond 1) the body and 2) the mind.
🦬 Please Note How Substack Handles Subscriptions. This Is Important.
If you become a paying subscriber to a Substack, an odd thing happens. Your subscription will be automatically renewed. I want to talk about that.
First, Thank You
I deeply appreciate paying subscribers. I’ve been a writer all my adult life—solely an independent writer, without the normal benefits or paid vacations or sick days. I have devoted my entire life to writing, to my belief in the power of stories to transform us, and to transformation itself—not to become worse people but to become better versions of ourselves. If you support me financially in this endeavor, thank you. I use your money wisely in caring for a baby, a farm, wild beauty, a good life, wild restoration.
Thank you for everything you do for me.
Please know I am not a proponent of automatic renewal. As a person who thinks of money as time and energy, and who pays attention to where I put this time and energy, I want to be able to choose.
Subscription Cost
During 2024, when I offered the correspondence course Journey in Place, Trackless Wild cost $99/year for paying subscribers. In January 2025, I lowered the amount to $33, a more affordable rate for anyone who wishes to belong.
However, Substack continues to auto-renew at the rate you originally contributed.
Therefore
If you are still paying $99/year and you wish to support me at that level, deep thanks to you for your abundance and generosity.
To Move to the $33/year Rate
If your financial situation has changed and you wish to lower your rate to $33, you will need to cancel your subscription, then re-subscribe at the lower rate.
Note: I just heard from a subscriber who has attempted to do this. Substack only offers a re-subscribe at the old rate. You may have to wait until your current subscription ends, then re-subscribe at the new rate. I’m sorry this is so annoying.
To Avoid Auto-Renewal
Not long ago, a person could subscribe to a Substack and immediately choose whether to auto-renew or not.
I have recently subscribed to a few publications, and I no longer see that choice offered.
To avoid auto-renewal, subscribe to the publication, then immediately go in and cancel your subscription. Your current subscription will continue for the year. At the end of the year, you will be invited to re-subscribe.
Apologies
I apologize for the extra steps and effort involved.
Thank You Again
Substack has been a gamechanger for me. Your subscription is a direct and democratic vote of support, which is to say love. That is priceless. It is something I never imagined and actually didn’t know to be possible. Having you support me directly—you to me—with the ability to instantly interact with each other, has transformed my writing life completely.
For the first time in my 30-year career, I see you and feel you and hear you and know you.
Back in 2022, I wrote about how I almost quit writing. Industrial literature was pushing me farther into a corner, impoverishing me, silencing me. It did this to a lot of people, especially women, especially women of a certain age. If you missed that piece, it’s called “The Question I’ve Wrestled With.”
You, my dear you, solved this misfortune for me.
My gratitude is truly profound. Thank you for investing in me.
For Paying Subscribers
Most of my posts involving my deeply personal life, especially my life as an aging mother to a baby, are behind a paywall. In addition, I will be writing more about the American political crisis, especially as it relates to our defense of nature and place, and those posts will be available to paid subscribers only.
🦬 Learn to Recognize AI Bots on Substack & Other Platforms
I began to notice a subscriber named “Neural Foundry” making comments on my posts, as well as on the posts of others.
As I investigated, I came to believe that Neural Foundry is an AI bot—an automated account that posts or comments without a human directly pressing “send”—trained to respond to stacks.
I found nothing personal on their account. No photos, no names, no mention of anything human.
Every comment Neural Foundry made read like an AI summary of the post itself. Over and over.
Yes, a human could be feeding the post into Chatgpt and asking for a summary. More likely, it is a bot.
These Substack subscribers are particularly interesting because in every comment they leave, they mention something meant to make them look human. They learned the guitar. They went to university. They taught middle school.
In addition, the bot will often misspell a word. Or two.
Apparently the AI bot is being trained to say personal things, pretending to be human, as well as trained to misspell, since that makes them seem even more human.
I have now tracked a number of these accounts. In almost every case, the human writer both “likes” and “comments” in return. (I did notice one Substacker replied with “Hmmm. Sounds like AI.”
Please proceed with caution.
I have been preaching for a year now that we need to quit our wholesale disgust over AI and begin paying close attention to how it is changing our world, including how it fools us. I have quit liking bot comments or engaging with them in any way. I block them when I recognize them.
Trackless Wild is written by a real human being, edited by the same human, and illustrated by humans.
I love real human subscribers. I do not wish for my subscriber numbers or engagement to be propped up by artificial accounts.
What About You?
Have you seen this new trend? How are you responding?
🦬 Upcoming Events
Bronson, Florida
Feb. 15, 7-8 pm EST—Lecture: Water, Wildlife & Wilderness | Black Prong Nature Resort
Columbus, Georgia
March 14, all day—Keynote | Columbus Botanical Garden
Oxford, Mississippi
March 25, 6-7 pm EDT—Oxford Conference for the Book | Ann Abadie Lecture in Southern Studies
🦬 Until Next Week
Be well, be wild, be of great courage.
I recently started my own little citizen science phenology project. I've been noting daily what time our Northern Mockingbird begins to speak pre-dawn. It varies by only a minute or two, sometimes the exact time as the day before. I'll eventually compare that data to official daily sunrise times and see if there's something interesting to learn.
And, as a fellow Moon lover, I call the Half Moon a black-and-white cookie. Not the most romantic name, but it's a nod to my native New York City. :-)
What a wonderful post to read this evening.
Sending all good energy to you and your family, Janisse.
I don't know my Substack subscription amount, but am more than happy to renew at whatever level it was.