The first seed catalog has come (a bit early, but everyone is anxious about finding buyers right now). Despite my daydreams of a green spring, winter has only begun. This weekend the few remaining patches of exposed ground had broken out in frozen goose bumps. There's still green to be found - evergreens, ferns huddling at the base of tree trunks, grass matted from the weight of a few rounds of snow. But the garden will be inhospitable to vegetable seeds until the thaw in March.

So I turn to growing things inside where the woodstove keeps things warm despite the retreat of sunlight. Sunday I planted some yeast. I made two ancient staples: bread (in the form of pizza dough) and beer.

I find gardening and fermentation have a lot in common. I prepare the substrate, for example cultivate the ground for plants and knead the dough for bread yeast, then provide care as necessary while they grow. Otherwise I wait. The whole process makes me feel connected both to the other beings and to history. One of our greatest assets has been our ability to make alliances across species barriers. We may have the decision making power in many of these relationships, but considering that a pampered crop like corn greatly outnumbers the human population, there's benefits for the other species as well.

Of course the quality of life for some of our partners may be questionable in the age of massive confined feeding operations. The only quality that effects evolutionary fitness (which is a bit of a misnomer) is how effectively an organism replicates its genes. If an organism has the chance to be weak, say for example because there's a sheep dog chasing away predators, it's wasteful to use resources being strong. Personally I care more about quality, but I like the lesson about intelligent laziness. I don't mind letting my companions do work they're more suited for. The cats can catch the mice that sneak indoors and the dogs can keep watch for visitors. The English ale yeast is welcome to its quiet corner, performing its alchemy on barley sugars while I tend to other things. In a month we'll crack open the first bottle and drink to the power of living things.