Midwinter blues

It's been the kind of January that I despise, cold damp and gray. I love snow, but we rarely have any here. I even loved snow when we lived in British Columbia in an area where we got ant least 10' a year. The first year we were there we saw what over 30' (yes, that was thirty feet) of snow looks like. When it finally all  melted (in June) all of the flowering plants jumped out of the ground like they knew they had a short three months of frost free time to get all their growing and reproducing done. I was used to Virginia Springs where Crocus came in Jan./ Feb., Daffodils in March, Tulips in April and Peonies in June. Not all of these blooming in the same few weeks, many overlapping. 

 Yesterday afternoon the sun came out for a while and this morning when I went out to walk there were the pointed pale blue buds of a species Crocus pushing up through the soil and the hellebore buds are beginning to swell rapidly. The Squirrels are chasing each other in circles driving Holly and The Cats crazy. Walking a little farther out into the garden I see that there are Snowdrops in bud and flowers on the Hamamellis x 'Rochester'. This is a wonderfully fragrant plant, if it would only drop it's leaves. I have never found a reliable way to tell if a Hamamellis cultivar is a dropper or clinger. Some forms will hold onto last years leaves so stubbornly that they have to be cut off with shears while other cultivars have foliage that falls off neatly. If I had to do it alone I would get so frustrated cutting all the dried leaves off I would probably remove the plant. Fortunately, Dick has the patience of biblical characters and he will stand there in 30 degree weather and cut every single leaf when I have left that job and gone on to something else. (Or into the house to get warm) Good thing there are two of us as it oftens takes both to get a job done.  

But even Dick's patience has been tested this year, one of our tractors (the one they use most often) has had one problem after another all winter. It has an intermittant starting problem. Some times it will start then at orther times it will not. Dick has worked on it and worked on it and worked on it. He has replaced many John Deere  (ie expensive) parts and even had the semi-local tractor "fix-it" guy come to check it out. I am beginning to think it is haunted and we need to get a shaman or monk or voodoo priestess to come an cleanse it's energy. What do you think the John Deere place would say if I told them our tractor is haunted and we need someone to come out and evict the haint? Maybe we should at least make a smudge bundle and burn some herbs. Sure couldn't hurt.

Until next time....