The Winter Chives are In.

The winter chives are in, at last. It was a close run thing, what with the plastic rain that smothered most of the fields for a week and then the hopscotch blight. But, praise be, we managed a good haul before the Winter Wanderers arrived. 
This is pretty good country around here, despite drawbacks like the Tickling Frenzy that takes some of the old folks each year, or the Bat Beast up on Craggy Ridge -- although he hasn't been seen in a number of years. Granny Holstein insists that the creature is hibernating, gaining strength for another swooping reign of terror. But we all just kind of laugh at her and throw her in the yeast trough when she gets like that.
Yessir, there's some mighty good country around here -- like up in the Woolly Hills, where the tree moss grows so thick and sweet you can gather enough for a mattress in a few hours, if the moss spiders don't get you first. Or over by the Dingle Dells, where the water crickets spring at your throat with such melodious sounds that it's  sheer pleasure to beat them off. And of course the River Musty is a great place for fishing, and hunting dew finches. You ever had a dew finch pie? Some of the best eating this side of the Ptomaine Mountains! It melts down your chin like cold lava.
Now some folks don't cotton much to the Winter Wanderers that come through here every year like rusty clockwork, but I say live and let live. Sure, they like to steal our potted ferns and rip up fence posts for their bonfires -- but who among us hasn't at some point enjoyed the roasted leaf sludge they so generously share? And their communal snoring is unsurpassed by anything even our trained musicians can produce -- no one denies that.
So what if they comb their beards in public and like to chew tin foil balls? Folks ought to remember that if the Bat Beast ever does come back, he always eats the Winter Wanderers first!
I hear tell that some of the young people are starting to complain that all we have to eat anymore is winter chives, and nothing else. Well, I can tell you that there's not an ounce of truth to that! Of course we live mostly on our winter chives -- it's the only thing that grows well around here after they set off that Nitrogen Bomb during the Alexa War. But once the noxious green clouds are swept out of the sky by the spring hurricanes and the Winter Wanderers are stampeded back across the Ashy Wastes there's God's own plenty to be gleaned and enjoyed by the industrious. Weevil nests make excellent soup. Spice rocks taste just like cinnamon and sugar, if you close your eyes and think about cinnamon and sugar real hard. A steaming bowl of warm yeast stew in the morning is just the thing to set you up for the rest of the day. And someday pretty soon someone will figure out how to pluck wieners off the wiener trees without getting impaled by the darting vicious roots. 
Life around here is getting better all the time, that's what I think. Why just the other day I heard tell that moths are returning to the county to the south of us. Such beautiful things, moths -- some of 'em have real intricate designs on their wings and when they float and hover around an oil lamp at night they seem to be dancing and you can almost hear 'em gently laughing at all our human problems that get us down. My maw remembers 'em from the Old Times. She's told me all about them. Even Granny Holstein starts grinning when she hears about the moths coming back. 
"If moths are here" she says, "can butterflies be far behind?"