I Can Dream

Sub-zero sunrise.

January is a dreamy month. By dreamy I don’t mean “attractive” as in “you have such dreamy eyes.” I mean it as in “given to dreaming or fantasy.” I do a lot of dreaming and fantasizing in January. It is the unattractiveness of January that makes me dream. Mostly about being somewhere else. As a gardener and orchardist who lives in a temperate zone (we are in USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 4 here), I know that winter is necessary. The apple and pear trees I grow require about 1,000 hours per winter of temperatures between 45° and 32° F in order to bloom and set fruit properly. I’d love a winter that averaged between 45° and 32°. It’s the days that hit -20° that start me dreaming. And 1,000 hours is just 41.6 days. If winter was just 41.6 days long, it would start on December 21st and end on January 31st. I could handle that. I’d even let it linger a few days into February. Then the fruit trees would be satisfied and I’d be satisfied. If only.

Frosted window.

Instead, winter here starts usually in late October or early November and drags on through March and into April. Therefore, I dream. I dream of springtime and gardens. I dream of going to far off places where it’s never winter, like Tahiti, or places where our winter is their summer like Australia. I fantasize about enclosing an acre of my yard in a huge greenhouse, like the Palm House at Kew Gardens in England (it actually covers 8 acres) where I would grow orchids and exotic fruit in a steamy paradise all year round.

Tahiti.

The Palm House at Kew Gardens.

We had several days of bitterly cold weather last week. Days where the high temperature remained in the single digits and the low temperature was in the minus double digits. It was the kind of cold that freezes the inside of your nose when you inhale. It makes the snow so dry it feels and sounds like you are walking on cornstarch – that squeaky sound that gives me the gritch.

The gritch is a term we use in my family to describe irritating sounds that give you goose-bumps (the German word for goose-bumps is Gänsehaut, a word I loved the moment I learned it). People get the gritch for different reasons. I get the gritch when I hear pieces of Styrofoam rubbing together or when I squeeze cotton balls or put cotton in my mouth or when I hear felt-tipped markers squeak on paper. I asked Miriam, Hannah, and Josiah what gives them the gritch. They said things like touching certain kinds of fabric, the sound of a fork squeaking on a plate, and the common nails on a blackboard (which, oddly, does not bother me). It’s weird, I know, but that’s how it goes. So when the snow is gritchy, I try not to go outside. It’s bad enough to shiver because it’s cold, but when you add the gritch on top of that, it’s almost unbearable.

As if they can sense my fragile mental condition in this bitter weather, several of my houseplants gave me flowers last week. Some of my plants, like my geraniums, are in bloom almost continually and I do appreciate their bright blossoms. Other plants, like my orchids, night-blooming cereus, clivias, and Christmas cacti only bloom once a year, and when they bloom they are an Event. Last week one of my clivias (Clivia miniata – I have four of them) started to bloom. They usually bloom in February, so this one is a bit early, but just in time to cheer me up. Another special plant that blooms irregularly is also in flower right now – my walking irises (Neomarica gracilis). These are tropical members of the iris family that I grow indoors. They have pretty orchid-like flowers that have a sweet perfume. Each flower is only open for one day. They start to open at sunrise and by about three o’clock in the afternoon they are shriveled up. If I’m not home during the day when the flowers open, I miss seeing and smelling them. I was lucky last week. Three of them opened on Tuesday and I was home that day.

Early clivia.

One of the walking iris blossoms.

The other two.

Last Sunday night was the eclipse of the moon. We were worried that the sky would be cloudy that night – it had been cloudy all week – but it cleared and we were able to view it. I had to stay up well past my bedtime to see it, but it was worth it. The moon was beautiful several nights last week when it was full or nearly full and the sky was clear and the air was so cold. The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow gave the luster of mid-day to objects below. Those are not my words, and no miniature sleigh with eight tiny reindeer ever appeared, but it was a perfect description just the same.

The full moon setting.

Despite the cold, yesterday there were things to do in the barn that could not wait any longer. Josiah and I went down just before noon and cleaned out the nesting boxes. When it’s cold, some of the hens like to sleep in the nesting boxes at night and they foul them with their droppings. With the lengthening of the days, they are starting to lay more eggs and with most of the boxes full of droppings, the eggs can get nasty. So we pulled out all the dirty straw and put in fresh straw. Their waterers also needed tending. They are heated and the warm water makes ideal conditions for algae to grow. So we emptied the waterers and brought them up to the house and Josiah scrubbed them out. We took them back down and filled them with clean water and the chickens seemed happy with our service. This spring we will get new chicks. I usually get chicks every two or three years. The McMurray catalog came in the mail and Josiah has tagged the pages of the breeds he wants to get. The thought of new chicks in the spring makes me happy.

The McMurray Catalog.

When we got up this morning, we found that about four inches of snow had fallen during the night and it was still snowing. I heard the snow plow go by around 6:00 a.m., but the roads were still very snowy. Stacey announced right away that she was not going to church. She has a morbid fear of driving or even riding in the snow. She said the rest of us could go if we wanted. At first I thought I’d go. I was already dressed and ready. I reasoned that if we took the Yukon in 4-wheel drive we might be okay. The rest of the family discussed it and we finally decided not to risk it. I always feel bad about missing church. I’m the one who prints the program and runs the organ. The organ is computerized and plays the hymns by itself, but you have to know which buttons to push and I’m the one who knows. Luckily, it was not my week to teach Sunday School, so I didn’t have to bail on that. We called to tell them we weren’t coming. That’s two weeks in row with no church for us. Last week it was canceled, this week we chickened out. So we are having another home-bound Sabbath.

I always try to keep a Sabbath atmosphere in the house by playing religious music all day. Usually it’s Tabernacle Choir music, but this morning I felt like listening to Bach’s Orgelbüchlein, a set of preludes based on hymns. I’ve always wondered what it would have been like to attend church at Weimar around 1710 when Bach was the organist there and hear him playing those preludes as I came in to worship. When the Orgelbüchlein was done I queued up my usual Tabernacle Choir to keep the music going. At 10:00 a.m. we gathered and listened to a BYU devotional. The speaker was Lawrence E. Corbridge of the Quorum of the Seventy. It was an excellent talk.

The Church of St. Peter and Paul, where Bach played the organ.

Now it’s time for lunch and after that, the chores. This afternoon we will work on family history projects again. The week ahead looks like more bitter cold and more snow. I checked and the cheapest flights from Buffalo, New York, to Papeete, Tahiti, or to Sydney, Australia, are all over $1,000. We’ll be going to Italy in sixteen days. Until then, I can dream.

This week's weather.