Sunday, January 30, 2011

How a Frozen Ground Gardener Stays Sane - or Mostly So

What do you do when January seems like it has lasted five months already and your garden is under several feet of snow and the city keeps promising the plows will come and the wind chill is straight out of Mordor? You get creative. You play. You get goofy even. (Goofy not being a stretch for me, say some).


I am dancing to salsa music. Actually I should say working out to it because, really, I haven't mastered enough of the steps yet to say I am cha-cha-chaing. No matter. The music makes me want to move my butt and moving my butt I am, even if it hurts. I guess that's why they call the class Salsa Burn. Oh, my favourite move? It's called Washing the Windows. Soooo much better than really washing windows. Trust me.


I am drumming. Yes, I wanna bang on me drum all day! I took a workshop in Japanese drumming in the fall and loved it. So for January I decided to try hand drumming. What fun! It is a rather intimate experience, actually, with a little more 'touchy-feely' focus than I was expecting, but nobody in our little circle has gotten to the point of oversharing yet so I'm good. There is something quite joyful about playing in sync with others and just having hella fun. This week we actually did a little dancing with the drums. My science-minded husband raises his eyebrows and nods with that poker face he has perfected when I tell him what we have been up to. Then he raises the newspaper up over his face again. I think I've heard snorts from behind that paper, but it must be the dry air making his sinuses act up. Right?


For moments of real cabin fever, I have emergency seed catalogue stations around the house. Quick, page 12, the hellebores....ah....that's better...sigh. Breathe.

And I am bringing flowers in for mainline therapy. These blue hyacinth's are my latest fix. They make the house smell heavenly and give me something to stare at besides the white outside. Of course, I have taken a million photographs of them. But that's okay. It does seem to help.


Otherwise, you might hear a bellow across the frozen prairies of "Heeeeeere's Johnny!" And we don't want that now, do we?

Hope all the GWN (Great White North) gardeners out there are finding ways to keep the winter blahs at bay. Just remember, February is shorter. Better be, is all I can say. Where is that axe, anyway?

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Dreamer, Nothing but a Dreamer...

Snow day! We are having what the weather personalities call a "weather system". All scheduled activities cancelled today. Nothing to do but bake little baby cinnamon rolls for all, and, of course, to dream.

Now, what does one dream of when the temperature is plummeting and one's garden looks like this?


This.



Dear Summer, I have the fondest memories of our time together last year. Thinking of you often.

xoxo
Ms. S