Prior to the Gregorian calendar, farmers in China and Japan broke each year down into 24 sekki or “small seasons.” These seasons didn’t use dates to mark seasons, but instead, they divided up the year by natural phenomena.
I really like this way of breaking the year up into smaller pieces based on what’s happening in the world around you. I don’t pay enough attention to nature to have this level of detail, but there’s markers in the garden I notice, mostly what’s blooming and when the frogs are singing 😉 Winter always sucks for me so it’s nice to have a way to track the progression of winter into spring — when the oregon grape blooms, then the crocuses, then the red flowering currant and indian plum, and now the tulips.
