Winter isn't Right

I am lusting for spring! I am driven to break into the ground and have it give out that sweet, earthy smell. Spring lust has come early this year. I think part of it is that winter just hasn't been right. It isn't winter yet. It has just swung between a mild fall to Indian summer. While the weather has been nice, I recoil from it. It isn't natural... it's weird...... kind of creepy. And I want to distance myself from it, so a nice, NORMAL spring would be welcome.

It does not help that the seed catalogs have begun to arrive. Parading their bounty. Teasing, flirting. Filling me with false expectations. Seed whores! Transplant tarts!

My desire to start growing again went to the point of having to drive past Yutzy's Greenhouse last week. I wouldn't be so wasteful as to just make a trip down for no reason, but I had business in Leon and decided to take the scenic route home through Decatur City... and past Yutzy's The greenhouses were dark. No movement. No cars in the parking lot. I slowed as I passed, watching the birdhouse gourds, whitewashed and suspended in a line in front of the entrance. They too, were vacant.

I want to get more serious about the garden this spring. It occurred to me yesterday as I brought home twenty bales of hay, that a barn full of hay, a shed full of firewood and a good garden, well preserved, meant safety, security and to some extent happiness. With those three things life can continue. Anything past that starts you onto the road to the utopian existence. There is a form of heaven residing in good fences. That place where blessings and bounty unfurl.

But I'm not there yet. And I sit here looking at this weird winter, that hasn't properly put the trees and other plants to bed or covered them with a blanket of snow. No saved moisture to be released into the ground as it melts. What will happen next spring and summer? This winter just isn't right and it's making me feel very uncomfortable.

Louie