I feel like an old man as I watch the blustery snow swirl outside my window. I'm wrapped in a warm sweater, drinking an aromatic herbal tea and I am at peace. "All I am missing," I think to myself, "is a pipe and my cranky old man persona would be complete."
Winter gives me time to think.
I hate the winter, the cold and the dark of it. I hate the short days, the snow and the cold rain. I hate the very thought of dealing with it.
It was winter that drove me south all those years ago.
We have yet to have a harsh winter since moving back to Western Pennsylvania. We have had cold snaps and snow of course, but the snaps haven't settled in for months and the snow - while heavy at times - has generally melted away quickly. This has made the winter bearable for me.
Winter gives me a break, a moment to stop and catch my breath before the busy seasons begin again. Lately I've been thinking about work and what I have to do come spring; such as cleaning up the yard, power washing our home and splitting trees.
Putting in a garden this year is not at the top of that list.
I've also been thinking about what I want to do to enjoy life. Planting a garden, while smart and environmentally friendly, isn't really something I enjoy.
Well I do enjoy gardening and eating the fruit of our labors, the last two years have seen our garden ravaged by deer; some things either never developed or grew as expected, while other things were not used to the extent that we expected. For example, we expected to use more lettuce than we actually did and most of the lettuce simply bolted.
This was a conscious decision on my part to let the lettuce flower in order to feed the bees and other insects, which we did not see many off this past season and I cannot help but wonder if it's due to our neighbors and their surrounding acres of grass, basically creating a desert.
We even planted pollinator friendly flowers and still we attracted only a few bees. To say that my garden these last few years has frustrated me is an understatement.
Even though I had planned to plant some fruit trees this last growing season, I failed to do that. In fact, I ended up having to take a few additional trees down and now I am faced with the hard work of splitting the logs and storing them for some future use. Which means reorganizing where I've stored the wood in the past to make it not only more accessible but manageable.
I do plan on doing some of this if the weather breaks before the spring, but it seems unlikely.
However I may have access to an earth auger come spring and a buddy that has offered to help, so if he does, planting two or three tress would be much easier; as well as putting in a trellis for grapes and berries. If not, then I still have my old post hole digger. If all this costs me is a pizza and a few beers then I'm all in on this plan as it will save me labor and time.
The last true project I have in mind is that I want to convert a tree stump into an outdoor table. Which should not be that difficult although it can be time consuming. Nor do I have all the tools that are needed, but I'm sure that I should be able to obtain them from either friends or family, plus I've found that once I own a tool I will always find another use for it. Such is the wonder of country life.
Susan and I are planning on going north or west on a brief trip to watch the full eclipse of the sun in April and we may take a week to go traveling as well. This would be through the state of Ohio and I'm curious to see what I may have missed, never really spending time inside Ohio other than brief trips through it or to Cleveland and Columbus.
Before you know it, summer will be upon us again. Then fall. The endless march of the seasons that have gone on for time immemorial and the connection between man and nature that somehow we lost with the advent of Modern Life.
Another winter will be upon us, and I simply must have more to show for it than I did this year. If I manage to do these three things this year, I'll consider it a successful year.
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