Last week made me thankful for many things. I was thankful for thermal underwear, woolen socks, wood stoves, thermal pane windows, insulation, and natural gas. But I was especially thankful that I don’t live anywhere in the world (Canada, Siberia, Antarctica) where -40 temperatures are common. I'm thankful that there's a nice layer of protective snow keeping that frigid air away from the gardens sleeping beneath.
The weather played havoc with our normally scheduled lives. On Monday and Thursday we had two hour delays at school. On Friday, when the wind chill dropped to -44, they canceled school. Two hour delay days still officially qualify as a full day of school, so that’s okay. Canceled days, however, are not good. Our school district doesn’t set aside any days for snow. They schedule the required 180 days so that school gets out at the earliest possible date in the spring. We get a few breaks during the year, but when we miss a day because of snow, they lop off one of those days as a makeup day. We already lost our Presidents’ Day weekend for that reason. Now they’re taking away days from Spring Break. I’d much rather have a planned day off in the spring when it’s nice outside than an unplanned, freezing, snowy winter day in February.
In the midst of all the ice and snow, there is an especially happy spot in our house. The first of the clivia buds have opened. The bright orange flowers with their soft fragrance make me smile every time I look at them. The other two clivia plants now have buds too.
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| Clivia flowers. |
Just before Daniel left to work in Utah, he spent two days helping our friend, Chris Nicholas, with his maple business. Chris still needs help and Josiah offered to work for him. So yesterday Josiah spent the day helping Chris prepare for the sap run. It wasn’t quite as cold – it got up to 12°, and Josiah said they didn’t go out into the woods, so it wasn’t too bad. Josiah will continue to work for Chris as the sap season progresses.
I’m not a hoarder. I don’t like clutter. Closets jammed full of half-remembered things make me nervous. Unorganized shelves and cupboards and the mysterious inhabitants in boxes under beds make me anxious. But there is one thing I do hoard – seeds. My seed orders have been arriving and every day a new package comes, I love to get out my seed boxes and add the new arrivals. I have two seed boxes, two plastic file boxes with handles – one for vegetables, one for herbs and flowers. Inside are folders for all the different seed packets. On the folders I keep notes on the different varieties I’ve tried and which ones worked better than the others. I rotate the seeds, using the older ones first, replacing them with fresh seed each year. I think I might be borderline obsessive when it come to seeds. I just can’t get enough. They make me feel powerful. I think of them as security against hard times. I fear the day seeds won’t be available anymore – a scenario that seems more possible every day. I save my own seeds when I can. I try to keep a large variety on hand (I have eight different kinds of cabbage seed and ten varieties of tomatoes, for instance), because genetic diversity is waning in the seed world. I’ve told Stacey, if the house ever catches fire, she should grab the genealogy, I’ll grab the seed boxes, oh, and don’t forget the children.
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| My seed boxes with a few of the folders displayed. |
This coming week will be a big week for our family. Sarah and Taah-shee will be married on Saturday in the Detroit Temple. There will be quite a gathering of family there – Sarah’s parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, nieces, several aunts and uncles, and quite a few cousins. And friends and family from Taah-shee’s family. We’re so happy to welcome Taah-shee into our family. This will be the first time in four years that all of my children and their families will be together at the same time. And I’ll get to see all my grandchildren together at the same time for the first time. We are praying that the weather will cooperate so all of us can get there.
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| The barn quilt I made for Sarah and Taah-shee. |
Today we’re having a brief respite from the bitter cold. We warmed into the 20's and it almost feels balmy compared to what it’s been. It won’t last long. Tonight we’re supposed to drop below zero again and won’t rise much above it most of the week. The past few mornings when I’ve gone out to fill the bird feeders I’ve heard a cardinal singing. It makes me think of the morning, not too distant, when I’ll walk outside and hear the red-winged blackbirds in their hundreds singing from the willows along the beaver pond. There never was a more welcome sound.
