Chomping at the bit!

I’m beginning to feel that a severe winter will make people even more anxious for spring.  That’s certainly how I feel!  Snow is one thing.  I must admit, although I don’t like to shovel it, the snow does look very pretty.  Hides a lot of blemishes in the winter landscape, also.

What I don’t enjoy at all are the brutally cold temps and an ice storm.  All day during the ice storm I kept saying how lucky we were to have electricity.  Our luck ran out the night after the storm.  It went off during the night and was out until noon the following day.  Again, we’re luckier than most folks since we have a generator.  We use it mainly for two things - to keep the heat on in the house and to keep the greenhouses inflated.  Without the fans running, they deflate.  Once that happens, it takes a long time to reinflate them.  If it is windy, the plastic can easily tear and have to be replaced.  So we were lucky in that respect too.

Not so lucky with trees, though.  Our big white pine took quite a beating and lost 5 or 6 big branches.  At least none of the branches hit the house.  And we don’t have any trees in the vicinity of where we park the cars.  W did have a number of branches down or lee stuck up in the trees along the side property line.  That will be some big clean up come spring.

So when I’m sick of looking at winter, I go down to the basement and gaze at the baby seedlings coming along.  I have a couple of batches germinated now - pansies and early perennials.  The latest ones are tiny and hard to identify by sight, since most plants have similar leaves when they first germinate.  The earlier batches look like full-grown plants reduced down to miniature.  I also have some stock plants and topiaries inside, so the basement looks quite spring-like.  Thank heavens!

This week, we get our shipment of soil, pots, etc. which is another sign of impending spring.  Soon, I’ll begin filling pots so that they’re ready when it comes time to transplant.  It’s really a treat to work in the greenhouse on a cold, but sunny day.  As long as the sun’s shining, it warms up quickly.  It’s like a trip to Florida, at least briefly!