Hanging In There

I was very thankful indeed for our fresh new snow that began coming down the night of New Year's Day. It makes everything so bright. Right now there is enough cloud cover that if it were not for the snow it would be very gloomy outside and in. But snow outside and shiny Christmas cheer inside and I am doing well!

I love that it has snowed during this Christmas is just really makes the season go so much easier for me, it greatly lessen expectations. One Christmas when it snowed after a week or more of major freezing we spent Christmas Day out at the pond, pushing snow off of the ice so that we could continue to skate. We completely skipped having dinner that Christmas and it was just fine by all of us including our guest. But secretly I think she and I wished that there had been a hidden "mother" somewhere who would have not stayed out to have fun but done the dutiful thing by cooking a proper Christmas dinner, but neither one of us were signing up to be that woman.

The memories of her and my husband being human snow plows and zambonies and then ice skating till our feet fell off, having a bonfire at the edge of the pond to see once it got dark, those memories are certainly burned in my brain and I'm thinking my two big girls who were there would echo that.

I am thankful for the snow because it reinforces for me that it is still Christmas. I need to hang on to the seasons, yes, plan ahead and prepare, but I cannot rush to be done with this season too soon. I have been known to push the spring thing a bit much and on a warm February day I am doing activities that are done in April or June. Now if it were only as harmful as the eager child who puts on her swimsuit I could understand, but I have had some very cold goats and some very dead plants because I was convinced that spring was here to stay.

Jumping the gun and thinking that spring should be here and that spring is always warm and sunny and bright also makes my winter blues intensify. I actually don't get too blue in the "dead" of winter it is when things begin to look promising that I get into trouble. Mud, clouds, more mud and then all of a sudden there isn't enough chocolate and coffee in the world to pick me up.

It did make it a little more difficult to prune yesterday and I am taking a vacation from being outside this morning to tidy up the inside but I have two complete trees done and a good start on some others. I had big plans to do one a day, an easy plan to make when the first one I choose to do is such an easy tree and Dirt is occupied far away on the other side of the farm.

But then I ran into the perennial snag of pruning a tree with a garage in the way, not to mention a truck someone refused to move cause the "game" was on. Frustrating to be sure and though I got the tree done I was too far gone to get back up on the ladder the next day.

When I did get back up on the ladder yesterday to tackle a tree that looks like it ought to cover the entire farm, along comes Dirt, chain saw and ladder in hand. So I had to jump out of the tree I was doing to save the tree Dirt was going to do in.

Elisabet is the only one I trust to prune our trees. Yes, they are old. Yes, the rot may cause them to fall down. But no, hacking off all the limbs on one side with the chain saw will not make the tree last another hundred years.

I intended to stay inside today and I keep running to the window to make sure Dirt isn't out "pruning" the trees to get the rest of them done before he goes back to work on Monday.

I am glad for the snow, it slows me down and makes me enjoy the full length and depth of the season. Now if it would just stick around through to February and then miraculously melt on the sixteenth (President's Day) so I can plant my peas, life would be perfect.

Oh wait, life is perfect!