Each new month is cause for celebration — but especially this month, which delivers us into a new season thick with green daydreams. With the vernal equinox on March 20, we careen toward the promises of spring even while we sneak in some more ski days before the thaw. Some of us embrace the hope of chlorophyll by swilling green beer on March 17.
Something else folks do around St. Patrick’s Day here in our nook of the Driftless Area is to chuckle over a few good limericks. Our annual call for limericks garnered a robust reaction from Voice of the River Valley readers. You will find a few on Page 7 to get the juices flowing.
Our regular monthly columnists Mary Friedel-Hunt, Doris Green, John Heasley, Jennifer Moore-Kerr, Patrice Peltier, Kathy Steffen and Etienne White, weave a beautiful universe of ideas from farm to family to cosmos.
We bring new three voices to these pages this month — Ricki Bishop (photography, cover and this page), Shirley Barnes (story, p. 5) and Peter Schmalz (“Badger Bookshelf,” p. 23) — and bring new perspectives on the region we call home. Pat Fargen shares the start of a new chapter at the Spring Green Senior Center (p. 9). Erin Crooks Lynch shares the joy of making pastry with diverse whole-grain flours such as those grown right here in the Driftless by Meadowland Organics (p. 22). We hope you enjoy every page!
Happy reading,
