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From grubs to garlic - that's how I measure start to finish, from April's first, shy peek, to October's last, chilly smile.

I mark the beginning of the growing season with the purchase of a few hundred grubs from grubco.com, which I lob to robins, grackles and towhees, eager to scarf down the "Mighty Mealys" and convert their energy into nest-building.

Birds are quick studies. Like clockwork, they'll greet with a song and a nod each morning, telling me its time for some grub. They come as close as six feet once they learn to trust. Our exchange lasts a few weeks, until the season takes full root, and I'm convinced mother robin and the young ones, now venturing on their own, will be fine without my tossing tiny protein bombs on the lawn. This is when tomatoes, beans, peppers, okra plants and onion seeds find their spots in the loam, guided by my eager fingers.

Maybe New Year's Day arrives too soon, before the season noticeably turns, before the presage of new life unfolds. A new year should be heralded long after the hangover yields to conviction and subsides into failed resolution.

It doesn't make much sense to celebrate a calendar milestone so far off equinox. Winter is only at half-mark when corks pop and college football is the Madonna for a day. The first month of the year is seasonably bland, like the 11th, 12th, second and third. There is no significant temperature or precipitation variation. No special, distinguishable marker; just the same old dormant limbs, same old brittle grass.

Six months later, while balloons float and harvests bustle, I dig up whatever is done in the garden to make way for the garlic bulbs I've hand-picked at a farmer's market or selected from an online seller. This year's fall planting includes a robust, international inventory of Shantung Purple, Chesnok Red, Lorz Italian, Killarney Red and an import from a Romanian farmer, Transylvanian No. 4507. This latter garlic has "more than a bit of a bite," the tag says. Perfect for keeping vampires away, I'm sure. Planting garlic in October is my personal Zozobra.

This is the time to re-work earth with my hands and purge all evil, gloom and doom. I escape the early dark evenings curled in front of fire with the latest literary offerings of the season, like "The Echo Maker," a new mystery by Richard Powers.

Soup, apples and pot roast braised with white carrots I've picked make downright good breakfast fare when October's long morning rays polish the first few frosts.

Halloween has come and gone. I have spooked myself. The worst is behind me. I'm ready to transition into training for winter's warmth, which radiates from within and is sprinkled on friends like cinnamon throughout November and December.

Maybe New Year's Day arrives two months two late. January, be damned.

Bullington is a senior policy adviser for the Brownstein, Hyatt and Farber law firm. He welcomes comments at jdbullingtongmail.com.