Last Sunday afternoon when I went down to do the chores, I decided it was time to open the coop and let the chickens out into their yard. It was a warm, windy day and they hadn’t been out since December when I closed them in for the winter. They were so happy to be outdoors again. I’ve left their door open so they go in and out as they please now. They didn’t go out much during the week.
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| The chickens outdoors last Sunday. |
Our warm springlike weather didn’t last long. Sunday night it started to rain and it didn’t stop until Monday night when a big storm blew in with high winds and pouring rain. That night the temperature dropped and the rain became snow. On Tuesday it warmed just enough for the snow to melt, but more snow came on Wednesday – three inches of wet, heavy white which mostly melted the next day. Then an even bigger storm hit us yesterday and brought more snow. We go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth – typical March weather. I fret about the weather a lot all year long, but especially in March and April when my longing for spring becomes more urgent and winter’s refusal to depart seems almost like a personal attack. I know it’s silly to fret. It won’t change anything. This year I’ve decided that rather then fret, I will focus more on ways to counteract my frustration.
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| Monday. |
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| Tuesday. |
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| Wednesday. |
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| Friday. |
The most powerful antidote to my frustration is starting seeds. We are ten weeks from Planting Out Day now and yesterday, while the snow fell, I sowed the first seeds of this year’s garden – celery, parsley, and a slew of flowers. Parsley is always very slow to sprout. It usually doesn’t emerge for two weeks or more. Sometimes in the past when I’ve grown impatient for it to sprout, I’ve sown a second batch and then it all sprouted and I had to do some radical thinning. I’ll be patient this year. I only grow flat-leafed Italian parsley, not the curly kind used as a garnish. Italian parsley tastes milder and sweeter. I don’t really like parsley very much. I can take it as a flavoring agent in things like spaghetti sauce, but I cannot just chomp on it like some people do. It tastes too green (I have the same problem with kale – too green-tasting).
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| Planting seeds. |
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| Italian parsley (top) and curly parsley (bottom). |
Celery, on the other hand, is a vegetable I love. I love it in soups and sauces and salads. I love to eat a stalk of it stuffed with peanut butter or cream cheese. In my family there are only three of us who really love celery – Stacey, Rachel, and me. Some of the others tolerate it in some things in small amounts if it’s cooked. Others won’t touch it if is cooked. Some of them don’t like it at all. That can be a problem when it comes to making things like potato salad, tuna salad, spaghetti sauce, or stuffing for the Thanksgiving turkey which, to me, must have lots of celery in them. Growing celery can be tricky. It needs a long head start before it can be planted out. Often, when I grow it, it starts out as a very spindly sprout and then shrivels up after a few weeks. When that happens, I end up buying starts from the nursery. But I try to grow some every year. The varieties I prefer are not the kind the nursery grows. I hope this year’s attempt will be successful.
Growing things from seed is important to me. It might be easier to just buy nursery started plants. And after I add in the cost of the equipment I need to do it, sometimes it might even be less expensive. But I value having the knowledge and experience more than anything. Then if the time ever comes when nursery grown plants aren’t available, I’ll still be okay. So I have my seed trays and cell packs and cow pots and grow lights and heat mats. I have my seed boxes – one for vegetables, one for flowers – where I keep my hoard of seeds. I rotate my stash by buying new seed every year to replenish my supply. I save my own seeds when I can. Sometimes I like to open my seed boxes and spread all the packets out on the table and look at them. It makes me feel rich in a way. There is so much powerful potential in seeds.
We turned the clocks ahead last night. I don’t like moving back and forth between Standard Time and Daylight Saving Time twice a year. I’d be glad if we got rid of it. It messes up my body clock. The days are noticeably longer now. The sky is already growing brighter when I get up at 5:30 – or it was before we changed the clocks. I like to go out every morning, if the sky looks promising, to watch the sunrise. Now, with an hour’s shift, it will be dark again when I get up. On weekdays the sun won’t be up until I’m on my way to school and I’ll have to watch it rise in the car. But we’re almost to the equinox and the mornings will soon be bright again. And I do like having longer evening hours so I can be out in the garden later. Now if only the weather would change to allow me to be out in the garden at all.
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| One morning last week. |
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| A sunrise last week. |
We intended to go downstate to the Thayn’s house this weekend. Hazel’s basketball team was playing their last game of the season and she wanted us to be there. But the game got canceled and the weather looked bad, so we stayed home. Warnings about the weekend storm appeared early in the week and grew more severe as the week went on. In our area we were told to expect up to a foot of new snow and winds gusting to almost 50 miles per hour. It was supposed to begin in the night on Friday night, so I took my usual precautions. We still had the last of this year’s firewood on the back porch, in case. I filled up the downstairs bathtub and every pitcher we own with water. If the power ever goes out, we have candles and lanterns for light and the wood stove for heat, but without electricity, our well pump won’t run and we’ll have no water.
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| The big storm last week. |
We went to the movies in town Friday night. The storm hadn’t arrived yet and we thought we’d be okay driving the 15 miles there and back before anything happened. When we came out of the theater in Coudersport it was raining. As we drove toward home, the rain turned into snow. By the time we got to Gold, the snow was coming down hard in huge fluffy flakes. Saturday morning when I looked out, everything was covered with a deep layer of new snow. When I went out to fill the bird feeders, I measured the depth – five inches and it was still snowing.
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| Stacey shoveling snow. |
I spent the morning starting seeds as I said above. In addition to celery and parsley, I also started some flowers – foxgloves, sweet peas, carnations, campanula, and red hot poker (kniphofia). As I put the seeds into the trays, I kept glancing out the window at the snow and thinking “Take that winter, your days are numbered!” Happily, the forecasters were wrong. In the end we only got eight inches and the winds only hit 25 MPH. Starting tomorrow, the weather will start warming again. By Wednesday we’ll be up in the 50's again and on Thursday we’re supposed to hit 60°!
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| This morning. |
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| Icicles on the chapel. |
This morning my body and brain knew I was getting up an hour early and they weren’t happy about it. Then I had to go out and brush snow off the car before we could leave for church – also not a happy thing. But as we drove to and from Wellsville, I had to admit the snow was beautiful. There were some amazing icicles hanging from the eaves of the chapel. Even so, I want it all to go away. Now we are home. It’s a sunny day, but cold. I don’t know what we’re having for lunch, but whatever it is, I hope there’s a lot of it. Cold snowy weather like this whets my appetite. As for the week ahead, I’m looking forward to things warming up and the snow going away. I have a list of jobs I’m anxious to tackle as soon as I can. And I know there are snowdrops and crocus buds under that snow. I saw them a few days ago.
