Planting the seeds of contentment
I’m too warm and lazy to get the camera out, don the winter clothes and schlomp out in the snow to take pictures, but boy-oh-boy is it winter out there! We woke up to about 18 inches and it’s still coming down so I’m going to get to work a little late this morning, let the plows catch up with the roads a bit. It took me an hour to get home last night (not so bad for a normally 20 minute drive done on roads covered with a thin layer of ice and frosted with a thick and constantly growing layer of powder–fishtailing all the way, even with the 4 x 4).
Normally this time of year I’m deep in garden mindset, the dining room table covered with seed catalogs, my 3-ring binder and clear sleeves spread out. I spend weeks muscle testing the garden plan, the spacing, the amount of each seed, the timing of seed starting. This year I haven’t done a thing. Didn’t even give the catalogs more than a cursory glance before tossing them in the coffee table drawer. I have more than enough seed (though of what is anybody’s guess, I need to sit down and do inventory). I won’t be doing all of the muscle testing this time around, there’s too little free time available and I’ll miss that part in a way, but honestly, I struggle with trusting the results every year. It’s hard to give up control, though quite thrilling to make the gesture.
This morning I ordered my seed starting mix and transplant mix from Fedco, and put in my order for potatoes from Moose Tubers (also Fedco). I won’t order anything else this year, not even a fruit tree because I have no idea anymore what I want to do with the property. Well, that’s not exactly true. It’s more that I have big plans, huge plans for landscaping this property into a permaculture oasis in the city and that’s going to take a long time and the vision is coming to me slowly. I don’t want to have a misplaced heirloom apple tree just yet. I think another year on the land with just simple vegetable and flower gardening, finding the right spot for the chickens and watching the play of the light will help clarify. It’s better to not shape too much just yet.
I also ordered a 100 foot ethernet cable so I can bring my G4 up into the living room. We have a nook by the staircase that has work-station written all over it. I just get nothing done with the setup in the basement. I thought about going wireless, but I never bought the airport card for my tower, and now it’s hard to find one and they cost more than they did when Apple supplied them. I’d need that and the Airport station and spending $300 on that isn’t appealing when I can run a $25 ethernet cable across the ceiling in the basement (floor joists) and have Chris snake it up through a hole behind the computer desk I intend to buy with that other $275 I didn’t waste on wireless. I’d like to get an armoir style with doors so I can keep the electronics contained.
I love having that for the TV and stereo, being able to close those doors and not have the black hole of the screen sucking every ounce of good energy out of the room makes a huge difference in my ability to function around the house. We usually only turn it on at night to watch a movie or when we get home so Lila can watch something while I make dinner if she’s not in the mood to cook. That happens less and less, she’s becoming quite the kitchen goddess.
So what all are you doing to plant the seeds of contentment this winter?
"Autumn is the eternal corrective. It is ripeness and color and a time of maturity; but it is also breadth, and depth, and distance. What man can stand with autumn on a hilltop and fail to see the span of his world and the meaning of the rolling hills that reach to the far horizon?"
~Hal Borland
February 14th, 2007 at 8:14 am
That’s funny - we got maybe a foot of snow, but the blizzard winds blew it to the point where there were not plaws, no nothing for 24 hours.
School is cancelled again today. I don’t know how I’m going to get through this week.
February 14th, 2007 at 9:31 am
Today my contentment is that Brett is having a snow day! How romantic! Except that Noah has the flu. Not so romantic. But better a partner at home when the kidling is sick then sick kidling alone!
February 14th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
I have been poring over my seed catalogs just like I do every late winter. But I know that what I want to buy just isn’t realistic this year. Like you I just don’t have the time.
I enjoy the whole ritual though. Every time I go through the catalog I have the strongest desire to drop everything else and start myself a farm.
February 14th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
I am learning to slow down and be happy in this spot. Normally I am quite lazy, so I don’t need to physically slow down, but I need to give my mind a rest and to recognize that it is OK to be Wife and Mom and nothing else. This past weekend I was Friend, which was wonderful, and the week before that I was Writer (FamilyFun, about LIW no less, my dear girl, how we must chat). But today — and it pains me to admit that I have to remind myself of this a second and third and fourth time — I am yet again resolving to be as big a help to my husband as I can. This unprecedented winter of perpetual snow cover has everyone spinning in circles trying to make sure the cattle stays fed. If it’s not snow, it’s the mud when the snow melts, but then it freezes again in awful ruts. I haven’t been behind the wheel of my car anywhere in the vicinity of my house since before Christmas. It’s draining to my husband, even though he never complains.
I can’t wait to see the plans you have. I am sure they are delicious.
February 15th, 2007 at 8:40 am
New reader, first time commenter. I am not too far from where you are (Erie) and I cannot believe how much snow we have now! And I am from Vermont so I should be used to it! I cannot even imagine planning our garden yet but I do have a lot of plans for expanding it and doing some work with landscaping this year. I would like to find native plants to grow in our yard, etc. As far as the rest of the winter? Cross country skiing, downhill skiing, snowshoeing…anything to make remind me that snow is really not so bad!
February 15th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
. . . i have received the gift of many extra days of sleeping in late . . . and it feels so great to drift back to sleep and not get out ouf bed into the cold morning . . . of course jacinta has discovered that walking back and forth on my stomach wakes me up of course
. . . but mostly this winter is about snuggling in the little alcove of my apartment, watching tv, all bundled up with blankets, the spaceheater humming, nowhere to go, all caught up with schoolwork, no one to please but myself and the furry guys . . . its my own little hermetic retreat 
all in the midst of four classes and 20 hours of internship each week . . . Life is hilarious 
(ps - i can’t wait to see if lila grace is the kitchen wizard her mama is . . . i volunteer for taste testing duties 
February 15th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
I just realized I wrote make remind me. That’s funny.