Thursday, 02/21/02

Rain, glorious rain, and fog all around! We have needed this moisture, and though not plentiful, it is much appreciated. We started getting in the packages we had ordered on-line, the herbs came in Tuesday and they are beautiful. These are dried herbs like Greek Oregano, Sage, Marjoram and Tarragon. These are ones we use so much of, and the Greek Oregano is a wonderful healing herb year-round.

Su.Sane and Robert’s paints came in also, with sketch pads and paint boards. They made it feel like Christmas all over again. The canvas should be arriving soon and the new series, The Garden Plan, will be ready and supplied. This is exciting to our family when a new body of work begins to manifest it is a fulfillment for us all.

I completely missed the “Great Backyard Bird Count” this year because I couldn’t stay in one place for a half hour AND see any birds. I’ll try again next year, all the exciting sightings were the week before with the Cooper Hawk and cedar waxwings!

Sunday, 02/24/02

Talked to Jeff yesterday, they had a great ski trip to West Virginia and loved being on mountains that you actually got to stay on for a long ride. He wanted to be able to spend more time on the trail rather than the chairlift, and this trip seemed to do it.

We are expecting snow showers this week now that the temperatures are slipping back to the teens. The full moon is Tuesday night, and there is great light out there tonite. Aldemere Farms is offering a full moon tour of the cross country/snowshoe trails on Wednesday evening, but there isn’t any snow on the ground…how will they do it??

I got all the plants fed and sprayed today, it looks like they will survive until spring and will be very happy to have fresh air again! Tomorrow we’ll cut some forsythia to bring in and force into bloom. Paul Parent said today it takes about 7-10 days for flowering, but the blooms could last up to 3 weeks if kept out of direct sun. This can be done with any flowering shrub.

We have had great walks this weekend, and I got to listen to SuSane’s recording of The Wilderness Within and keep in rhythm with the words, like a mantra. Today when I returned, I headed down to the cellar to pack up the Christmas decorations I had sorta “dumped” in January. We got some great storage containers yesterday, and now we will be able to carry up just 3 or 4 containers when ready to decorate again, instead of tons of boxes. Maybe next year I won’t wait soooo long to put things away, but I guess I have always done that because it is just a “Sunday afternoon in February” kind of job.

As “gardeners” we just couldn’t resist a new shipment of stepping stones at Reny’s last week, and garden table umbrellas, and a BLUE watering hose! Can you believe it…I bet we will be the only house on Mechanic with a blue water hose. Of course, Meetingbrook will be a close second with their Pink Flamingo water spout. This going to be a colorful summer or what?

Sandra