no culture comparable

This week the sun is back, and we may hit sixty degrees (!). I win, as Katie says.

Every winter I think to myself, "I'm not going to garden next year. What's the point, really?" And then the instant that the plum tree outside Rosemary's window starts blooming, I run to the garden. This year I had extra inspiration, thanks to Laura:



(On the offchance that you're not holding your computer up to a mirror right now, the foam kneeling pad reads "No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden." - Thomas Jefferson, 1811)

Yesterday I turned over the soil, added a huge bucket of reeking compost we'd been storing since last summer, and mixed in a couple of bags of organic soil on top. I might go ahead and plant some lettuces next week - and then carrots and peas in March!

I even spent some time clearing out dead plant material from our side beds. Never felt so much like my mother.

There's a little stress in my life these days. Jack applying for jobs takes a large amount of time and energy from the both of us. As we work, we are living in, trying to navigate, ambiguity. Sad things are happening at church and to my friends. Rosemary has been sick for a week.

Sunshine and garden and good therapy. And I'm giving up facebook for forty days or so. Instead of surfing aimlessly, I'm trying to spend a little extra time meditating on sacrifice and self-denial, and that dark season of seeds underground, germinating, but not sprouting into visible new life quite yet.