It’s Still Winter and I’m Still Coping (Barely)!

One day this week, I woke up to an unexpected blanket of snow. My immediate reaction was, “Ugh!” 

Snow on a horse and flower farm brings all kinds of additional duties. It means horses might need extra blankets, there are more frozen buckets, and paths will need to be shoveled. It means I will need to shake the snow off the low tunnels before they collapse or the snow freezes in place. The many steps I take around the farm are harder in snow, and I felt the work of the day creeping over me with a sense of dread.

Then I had a fleeting memory how different a snow day felt when I was a child. There was the anticipation of no school and extra sweets in the form of hot chocolate. I remembered the joy of sledding. When I was a child, my Dad would be the one to take my sister and I sledding, sometimes even after a brief nap when he had just completed working the night shift. Sledding was my Dad’s job, but our Mom got us dressed and helped pack us into the Ford Rambler, enthusiastically I’m sure, buoyed by the promise of a few quiet moments in the house alone. Getting kids ready to go sledding is always a chore, but when I was a child it was even more involved. I’m not sure high-tech fabrics were a thing back then, but if they were, we didn’t have them. This meant our Mom had to add lots and lots of layers. Soggy mittens and wet toes were a given. There were no neck gaiters, just an itchy wool scarf wrapped round and round and tied so you wouldn’t trip should it unravel. Layers so thick that you could barely walk up an incline steep enough to guarantee speed down a hill was part of the process. By the time we were fully bundled, we could barely climb into the car.

Cross-country skiing to boost the mood!

We often went to the house of a family friend who had a large piece of property with a big, steep hill and lots of other children sledding. They were older than us and better at navigating the uphill, but no matter, my Dad believed in “character-building,” and it was mostly our job to get ourselves and the sled back up the hill. Although it is possible he helped at the end of the day, I mostly remember the uphill climbs at the start of the day.
Despite the difficulty moving, the soggy digits and long, hard walk up the sledding hill, I remember the thrill of the downhill, the joy of speed, and the relief of making it to the bottom of the hill without a wipeout. More than all of that, though, I remember how my Dad genuinely loved the sledding. I’m pretty sure I usually wanted to go home before he did.
Like so many of my early, positive associations with the outdoors, this memory is squarely paired with memories of my father.
So when I felt dread at the work involved with the snow, I tried to remember that childhood joy, and even took a brief spin on the cross-country skis. 

Seed starting station in January

Meanwhile the growing season is getting closer. In the seed-starting area, the ranunculus are sprouting, and the sweet peas have sent up shoots. I’m hoping to get them all  in the ground during a warmish week in February (if we have one!). I also started some new-to-me perennials, Gaura and a fancy pink columbine. Perenials are notoriously more difficult to start from seed, so we will see how that goes.
Soon I will also be starting stock and snapdragons, and by February, I will have a long list of seeds to be started and transplanted in March. 
Stay warm and enjoy the snow from whatever spot you like best–inside or out.

Ranunculus just starting to sprout.