I began the week with high hopes. I looked at the weather forecast for the week on Monday morning and it looked good – for February anyway – days in the 40s, no snow and only a slight chance of rain. It was time to prune the orchard! But the morning was still cold and gray and foggy and I decided to wait a while before going out. To occupy my time during the wait, I tended my houseplants. Some of my plants, the ones that spend their summers outdoors, are suffering. They're tired of the darker, dryer conditions in the house. They are losing leaves at an alarming rate. I'm beginning to think a couple of them might not make it. There isn't much I can do for them at this point. We're all waiting for spring, trying to hold on through these last long weeks. But some of my plants are thriving. In fact, I have some spectacular flowers blooming right now. My plumeria is near the end of this bloom cycle with only a few unopened buds left, but it has been in flower for weeks and has brought me much happiness. I also have an amaryllis blooming. It has huge white blossoms. And, after several years of waiting, I have an orchid in bloom. Flowers in February make me happy.
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| Flowers in February. |
That morning I needed some music to energize me while I worked among my plants. I pondered a moment on what to listen to. My musical adventures take me down many paths. Sometimes they lead me down well worn trails of memory, other times they lure me into unfamiliar territory. I love exploring new music. Sometimes it's actually old music because I don't know all of the classical composers. Discovering music that is new to me from the 17th, 18th, or 19th century is exciting. And then there is a wide world of rock and roll, pop, and country that I haven't ventured into. And there are some places I never will go.
I didn't know at first what I wanted. I opened my music files to look for something and the path that beckoned to me was 90s Country. I'm not a huge fan of country music, but I like some of it. I like some of the older classic stuff, by which I mean 50s and 60s – Hank Williams, Kitty Wells, Patsy Cline, and a bit of Johnny Cash. I don't care for most of the newer country music because it sounds too much like it has surrendered its soul to rock and roll. But I love country music from the late 80s and 90s. Back then I didn't choose to listen to this music. We lived in Southern California and I spent a lot of time in the car commuting to work and the radio stations with the strongest signals were mostly country, so that's what I listened to. That music kept me awake on the long drives to and from home and I sang along with it because it was singable. That happened to be a time when country music was experiencing a renaissance of sorts. The big stars were people like Reba McEntire, Randy Travis, George Strait, the Judds, Alan Jackson, Trisha Yearwood, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, and Garth Brooks. It seemed to me that their songs told stories and they really could sing. I suppose a large part of my love for this music is nostalgia, although I don't often feel nostalgic about Southern California. There was much about living there that I never liked. But there was also much that was good. We had happy times there. When we moved here, I stopped listening to country music radio. I no longer had a long commute to work. And we don't have good radio reception here. The dominant station here is an oldies station, WJQZ, out of Wellsville, New York. And the nature of country music began to shift more toward rock and even rap influences and seemed to be even more about trucks and beer than it was before. So it was 80s and 90s Country music that filled up my Monday morning, a queue of songs from another time that still sounds so good to me.
At 10:00 it was still overcast, but it had warmed to 42° so I donned a coat, grabbed my pruning shears and saw, and headed out. I was disappointed from my first step off the back porch. The snow was melting, but it was still deep and now it was treacherous and slushy too. I trudged out, slipping and stumbling through drifts still two feet deep in some places. I slogged a path to the farthest end of the orchard, trying to determine where to begin. It was no good. Because I had already pruned the lowest branches back in January, now I needed to use a ladder to reach higher into the trees. There was no way I was going to drag a ladder out into that mess. I turned around and slogged my way back to the house. I would wait. Maybe Tuesday would be better.
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| The orchard on Monday. |
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| The raised bed garden buried in snow. |
Tuesday was another cold, foggy, drab morning. I spent another morning waiting for a break in the gloom to go out into the orchard. While I waited, I needed something diverting to distract me. This time I chose opera arias. I once thought I hated opera, but over time as I explored it, I gained an appreciation for it. Well, some of it. I'm still not a fan of all of it. Some of it I find tedious because it's too long or it doesn't have much in the way of memorable melodies. I pick and choose the bits and pieces that I enjoy, and that is mostly the arias. Operas consist mainly of two musical forms, the recitative and the aria. There are other forms, duets, trios, quartets, choruses, and such, but it's mostly recitative and aria. The recitative is where the singer does the speaking part only they sing it. It moves the story along, provides the narrative and dialog. An aria is where the singer gets to pause and tell us what is going on in their heart or mind in more depth and detail. It is a more elaborate, melodic, solo showpiece. They are the most famous parts that most people recognize, like "Nessun Dorma" from Puccini's Turandot or the "Habanera" from Bizet's Carmen. There are many beautiful arias. I have a collection of them. So I set up a Tuesday queue and filled the house with glorious voices. A happy contrast to the bleak scene outdoors.
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| Tuesday morning. |
The sun broke through at noon and the temperature rose to a very pleasant 48°. I went out to work in the orchard. It was still too sloppy to haul around a ladder, so I used my extension saw and pruning hook and pruned what I could. It was nice to work in the sunshine. I wasn't able to finish.
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| Sun at last on Tuesday afternoon. |
Tuesday was the Lunar New Year, Chinese New Year, Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, and Fastnacht Day. That's a lot of celebrations on one day. I would have liked to celebrate with a Chinese buffet, pancakes, and fastnachts, but alas, none of those delicious foods fit my restricted diet. Instead, we had breakfast for dinner – scrambled eggs, bacon, and biscuits. Oh well.
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| Fastnachts. |
One of the best things last week was the arrival of some of my seed orders. Every day I checked the mailbox hoping there would be something in it for me. So far three of my orders have arrived. When I bring the mail in, I open the packages and spread the seed packets out on the dining room table. I read each packet and then I separate them into groups according to their planting times. I can feel winter losing its grip a little as I do that.
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| Seeds that arrived last week. |
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| And new seed trays. |
The forecast at the beginning of the week said there was a slight chance for rain midweek. By Wednesday morning, that slight chance had turned into 100%. It rained all day. It was a cold rain, but I consoled myself by saying that at least it wasn't snow. So I was stuck inside all day. No pruning. I felt restless. I needed to exercise my brain. So I sat down to play the piano. I took my first piano lessons when I was eight along with my sister Hollie, who was twelve. Our teacher, Mr. Mannix, taught lessons from his home in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. He had a music room just off his living room. He smoked a pipe and his house had a sweet smoky vanilla tobacco smell that I liked. Our lessons were on Fridays. Our mother would drop us off at his house and then go to the nearby Weis Market to do her grocery shopping and then pick us up an hour later. We studied from the John W. Schaum piano method books. I was not a diligent student. The piano at our house was down in the basement, too out of the way to tempt me to practice much. Those lessons came to an abrupt end one Friday. Hollie took her lesson first while I waited on the couch in the living room. Mr. Mannix had National Geographic and Look magazines on the coffee table there that I liked to look through while I waited for my turn. Hollie finished her lesson and I went in and sat at the piano. My lesson was terrible. I probably hadn't practiced once that week. Mr. Mannix got upset. In frustration, he took that Pre-A Schaum Green Book, rolled it up, hit my hands with it, and yelled at me. I began to cry. Hollie heard it all and came storming into the room. "Don't you ever touch my brother again!" she yelled. She took me and we walked out. We made our way over to the Weis Market and told our mother what had happened. We never went back to Mr. Mannix's house again. Years later, when I was eleven, after we had moved to Tallmadge, Ohio, I started piano lessons again. My parents had bought us a new piano that was in our living room. My sister Nancy took lessons with me. Our teacher was a friend of Hollie's, Elaine Montgomery. She lived close by and we walked to her house. We took lessons with her until we moved to Ravenna, Ohio, when we switched to a new teacher, Mrs. Swineheart. I was thirteen then and quickly losing interest in lessons for several reasons. I wasn't very good. I didn't like to practice. Nancy, who was three years younger than me, was so much better. And I was frustrated. I adored Chopin and I wanted to play his music, not these silly finger exercises and baby lesson pieces. In my youthful ignorance and impatience, I didn't know what it would take to achieve that, the years of hard practice required. When we moved again, this time to Naperville, Illinois, my parents found a new piano teacher, Mrs. Shirey, and Nancy continued her lessons, but I did not. So I can play the piano a little and sometimes I like to sit and play simple things. So that morning, I sat at the piano and spent a couple of hours making my way through everything within the scope of my talent, or lack of it – some Primary songs, one hymn (Come Ye Disconsolate, very easy to play), and a few very simple pieces from Bach's Anna Magdalena Notebook. I can play things fairly well with my right hand, but if I try to add the left, they fall apart. I wish I had persevered and kept on with my lessons. If I had, I probably could have played some Chopin that rainy Wednesday morning.
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| Our piano. |
Wednesday night around 11:00 I was awakened by the rumble of thunder. At first I thought I'd been dreaming, but as I laid there with my eyes open, I saw a flash and then more thunder. Over the next half hour the lightning and thunder were nonstop. Some of it was close enough to shake the house. Then there was a brief downpour – very strange weather for February. It came because cold air was moving in, clashing with the (relatively) warm air we'd been blessed with for a few days. When I went to bed it was 48°. When I got up on Thursday morning it was 29°. Sarah and Tosh reported that they had hail at their house. They live 15 miles from here. As far as I could tell, we didn't get any hail.
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| Hail at the Foster's house. |
With the warmer temperatures and rain we had, the snow retreated enough to expose the flowerbed at the front of the house. And there, freed at last from the snow, at least for a little while, were the green shoots of the snowdrops pushing up from the earth. Seeing them made me so happy. They are the first sign that the earth is trying to wake up from its winter sleep.
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| Snowdrops. |
Thursday morning was cold and foggy. That front that moved in during the night shifted everything back to frigid February weather. I had errands that morning, a trash run, a trip to Wellsville to Runnings and the library. I was gone most of the morning. There was a lot of ice between the house and the car, the car and the road, and icy puddles everywhere. Friday evening the Fosters came over for pizza. I love our Friday night homemade pizza tradition.
We went to the temple yesterday. We were concerned that the weather might prevent us from going. When we left the house at 6:30 A.M. there was a light freezing drizzle falling, but it wasn't too bad. We made it to Palmyra and back again without any problems. The temple was wonderful, as it always is. Going to the temple always helps bring things back into perspective for me. Being caught up in the world and its travails and distractions most of the time, it's good to step away and bring things into an eternal, Christ-centered perspective. That's what the temple does for me. It helps me remember who I am and the covenants I've made. While we were there, we bumped into a few people we know and that makes it even nicer.
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| At the temple. |
By the time we got home, it was already time to do the chores. It was getting colder and starting to snow a little. I gave the chickens extra rations so I would only have to do minimum work on the Sabbath. On my way back up to the house, I filled the bird feeders. I think the birds can sense that snow is coming. The feeders were mobbed immediately. The forecast said we could get three or more inches of snow starting that night and into Sunday. To the east of us nearer the coast they were predicting a blizzard. I prayed the weather wouldn't interfere with getting to church.
At 5:15 this morning the backup beeping of the PENDOT plow down on highway 49 woke me up. They always turn around at the end of our road. It was almost time to get up anyway, so I got out of bed and went to the window to see how things were. The world, which had begun to thaw and emerge from the snow, was white again with two inches of new snow. I checked the forecast. We were under a winter weather advisory with up to three more inches possible between then and Monday afternoon. It was too late to cancel church. I just had to trust people to use their own judgment and not go out if they thought it was dangerous. But I didn't feel that was an option for me. I had to be there. And I knew that would create a lot of anxiety at our house. Stacey usually does the driving and she loathes driving in the snow. But I also knew that once we got to New York, the roads would be better. They use a lot of salt and Pennsylvania does not. We decided to ride up with Kurt. His car is better equipped to handle the snow.
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| This morning. |
It all worked out fine. We had no trouble on the road going to or from church. Our meetings went well. It's snowing harder now, but we are home and don't need to worry about it. Lunch will be ready soon. After that, I think a nap is called for.
It looks like we're doing a good job of escaping February, at least the last part of it – and not a moment too soon. Miriam is in Hawaii right now. She is sending us pictures of the birds and flowers she's seeing. Hannah is leaving on Saturday to join her there. They won't be home again until March 10th. And this Wednesday, Stacey and I are leaving for Florida. We are joining the Thayns, my nephew Zach and his family, and my brother Steve and his wife Linda there. We will be down in the lower end of the state where I hope it will be warm. I don't know what all has been planned. Stacey and I are just sort of tagging along. No matter what, I'm sure we'll have a great time. We'll be back home on the 4th. While we are gone, the Fosters are tending to the compound.
So I didn't get the pruning done as I'd hoped last week. And now I'll be gone so I will not finish until the first part of March. If the present pattern holds, I don't need to worry about the trees waking up anytime soon. I think I'll have plenty of time. In the meantime, a big adventure lies ahead! I'll report on our adventure when we get back.
