Stuck

It seems we are stuck. We are stuck at home. We are stuck in winter. We are stuck in time. And I wonder when it all will end and the world will move forward again. I’m growing weary of it. Last week it snowed and snowed and snowed. On Tuesday night, two inches fell. Then it warmed enough on Wednesday to melt it all away. Then Wednesday night it snowed again, another two inches, but it never got warm enough on Thursday to melt all of it and more kept falling off and on throughout the day. On Friday it snowed all day and all night. By Saturday morning there was six inches of it blanketing everything. Today it is in the 50's and it’s all melting again. This swinging back and forth between winter and spring disheartens me. I get a little work done in the garden and then it gets buried under snow and I must wait to work again. I ache to see the trees leaf out and new things grow. I want to feel the sun’s warmth soak into the world again.

Tuesday Evening.

Wednesday Morning.

Thursday Morning.

Saturday Morning.

This Morning.

The snowdrops and the glory-of-the-snow are gone, now if only the snow would go too. The crocuses are finished. The daffodils and hyacinths, which should be dazzling us with bright beauty, keep getting knocked down by the snow. The tulips have waited wisely to bloom. They will be beautiful if the snow and the deer spare them. Do I sound discouraged?

Wednesday Morning.

Saturday Morning.

This Morning.

I am feeling more acutely this house arrest we are under. Yes, I’m free to wander my yard. I’m free to go to limited places if I can justify my need. On Saturday Stacey and I ventured out to do some needed errands. We went to the bank, to the Dollar General, and to Reed’s Market in Genesee. We wore our face masks. The governor has announced that businesses must refuse service to anyone not wearing a mask. The limitations rankle me. Maybe I read too many news sites, but it seems that the nation and the world are rumbling more and more with discontent. I feel it even here in my little world of Gold. I worry now about the loss of liberty, about corruption and manipulation by unscrupulous political figures, about debt and deception, more than I worry about the actual disease. I long for normalcy and wonder if it will ever come to us again.

Headed out to do errands.

Weeks back, just as all of this was beginning, we were in Florida. It was warm. I hiked through swamps teeming with life. I walked on warm white sand beaches and watched the sun set into the Gulf of Mexico every evening. It was idyllic. It was the last calm before the storm broke. I look back at it now with longing. I want to be warm. I want the sun to shine. I want the world to be vigorous and healthy and happy.

It helps that Miriam and Hannah are home now. They bring life and fun to the house. I love to have my children and grandchildren around me. The Thayns are waiting anxiously to come visit and bring little Florence to visit her grandparents’ house for the first time. I’m waiting for Tabor to help me build a pig pen. Hazel and June and Mabel want to come see us and play in the yard and see the baby chicks. But who knows when they will be able to come. It seems we are waiting for everything.

I found one of the best ways to keep anxiousness from buzzing around in my brain when I’m stuck in the house is to fill the place with music. And not just any music. The music that most appeals to me right now is Baroque Music – Bach, Handel, Corelli, Vivaldi, and others. I love to put on a long queue of pieces and unleash the music. It is powerful stuff. It is complex, melodious, harmonious, sometimes boisterous and exuberant, sometimes serene and soothing, often spiritually moving. It makes me happy. I love it.

My big tree order arrived on Monday morning before the weather turned – trees and shrubs for the woodland garden, blueberry bushes, raspberry, kiwi, and strawberry plants – all of them bare root. I spent the day planting all of it. The trees and shrubs are small. They’re hardly noticeable right now, just twigs sticking out of the ground with tags to show me what is what. The other plants have vanished under the snow. I take comfort in knowing they are there, even if I can’t see them right now. I don’t think this snow hurt any of them. I’ll know for sure in a few weeks when they start to leaf and grow.

One bit of brightness in my world right now are my oncidium orchids. The small one has been in bloom for two weeks now. It is yellow. Last week the big one began to bloom. It is rusty orange and yellow. Seeing them bloom, so bright and tropical, warms my heart – no matter what it’s like outside. The music room, where most of my houseplants and my seed trays are is my favorite room in the house.

My big oncidium orchid.

A closer shot.

Closer still.

The music room.

I’ve heard late spring snows such as this one referred to as “onion snow.” I looked up the origin for the term and found it comes from the Pennsylvania Dutch (Pennsylvania Germans, actually, my mother’s people). They use it to describe the snow that falls after spring onions are growing, usually the last snow of the season. My onions are growing and I hope this is the last snow. I’ve also heard spring snow called “poor man’s fertilizer.” According to the Almanac, that’s because snow contains nitrogen from the air and because it melts slowly and doesn’t run off quickly like rain, it gives its nitrogen to the soil for plants to use. That makes me feel a little better about this snow, but not much.

During the winter I sometimes have a problem down at the barn. When deep snow accumulates on the roof and then starts to melt a little, it slides off in a sheet that forms a hard bank that blocks the lower barn doors. A few days ago I commented to my family that this past winter I didn’t have that problem. Then yesterday, after our six inch snowfall, when I went down to work in the barn, there it was – a rock hard bank of snow three feet high. I spoke too soon.

The barn on Saturday morning.

The snow bank on Saturday afternoon.

We are getting more chicks. I gave thirty eggs to my friend Bob Jones and he put them in his incubator. They are hatching now and we need to go and get them. I don’t know how many of them have hatched. And I don’t know how many will be pullets and how many will be cockerels. I hope there aren’t too many cockerels. I don’t need the drama of more roosters in the flock. The chicks I bought at the Tractor Supply three weeks ago are fully feathered now, but still small. I’ll leave them in the isolation pen for a few more weeks. Yesterday I blocked off a section of the pen for these new chicks. This new addition will double the size of my flock. We’ll have lots of eggs to eat and sell by fall – I hope.

Today for church, Stacey, Miriam, Hannah, and I were here and the Thayns, Fosters, Dunns, and Nancy Jones joined us through technology. Technology has really blessed us. We use it to connect with each other. We use the church site to play the hymns we sing. We watch videos that relate to our scripture studies. I’ve grown more accustomed to meeting this way. In many ways I prefer it. We start when we’re ready and stop when we’re done. We don’t have to travel. It’s been barely an inconvenience.

Our virtual congregation today.

I checked the weather for the week ahead. It won’t be very warm, in the 40's and 50's. It’s supposed to rain tonight and they say there will be rain mixed with snow on Tuesday and Wednesday, but no accumulation. I hope they’re right. I have things that need to be done and I’m done with snow. I’m ready to move on.