Despite my impatience for spring and my bad case of cabin fever, I can’t deny the occasional beauty of winter, even this late in the season. We had some especially beautiful evenings last week. Often in the winter as the sun goes down, the sky looks like mother-of-pearl and the snow turns blue and the shadows violet. It can be so lovely. Even so, I wish it would all go away.
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| Josiah and his snowman. |
The head cold I had last week lingered on through this week. Stacey and Hannah caught it and have been miserable with it all week, too. Together we’ve gone through a lot of tissues.
We got some very good news last week. Hannah has been accepted into the nursing program at Alfred State University – we’ve known that for a while, but last week she was notified that she has been awarded a full scholarship – tuition and room and board for four years. We’re so happy. One of the stipulations, however, is that she live on campus. She was planning on living at home, but that’s okay. Alfred is only an hour away, close enough that she can come home whenever she wants and we can go see her whenever we want.
I finally planted my first seed starts last week – celery, lisianthus, and verbena. It’s so invigorating when I plant seeds. I can always sense the power in seeds, so much potential in such a small bit of matter. Seeds seem miraculous to me.
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| The first seed tray underway. |
Great things are happening with my house plants right now too. All of my orchids have buds about to open. And my clivia plants are about to bloom too. Flowers in the house make me happy. Soon there will be flowers outdoors too.
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| My clivias with buds. |
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| Orchids in bud. |
It’s sometimes hard in February to remember June. I was doing some garden planning last week and had to look at some photos from last year to remember what I planted and where. The photos were almost shocking. I’d forgotten how much life there is in June. The green. The growth. The warmth. June is just fourteen weeks away. It doesn’t seem possible that the world can change so much in so short a time, from bitter, austere February to lush and verdant June.
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| My garden in June of 2013 |
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| My garden this morning. |
We had a little snow during the night, but it has warmed into the 40's today. The snow has turned slushy and in a few places the ground has appeared again. I’m waiting for the snow to leave front flower bed. That’s where the snowdrops are and I know that as soon as the snow retreats they will be there, ready to bloom.
This week we will bid farewell to February – at last. I’m always glad to see it go. But March is usually not much better. In fact, March is often a crueler month because we expect spring to begin and it doesn’t happen that way. Most years March still belongs to winter. But as March progresses I will plant more and more seeds. By the end of March the table upstairs under the lights will be covered with seed trays full of green sprouts. And, if we are lucky, there will be snowdrops and crocuses and the first of the daffodils and the robins will be back. If we are lucky.
