Saturday, March 29, 2014

March 29, 2014

March was a repetition of January...bitter cold to the end. Today was my second walk to the garden patches. It is 47 degrees this morning and somewhat damp. We expect rain this afternoon. One hardy gardener was tilling the soil which can hardly be free of frost yet. Snowdrops still look newly born, crocus are starting to bloom and daffodils have pierced the soil. The thread-like blooms of the witch hazel would be better appreciated if last years leaves would exit.

Amanda and her church group leave Guatemala this morning after their weak-long mission trip. I see smiling children's faces on Facebook while the group was visiting a school. Looks like the kids really latched on to these foreign visitors.

Monday, March 24, 2014



Instead of Spring

One year, it kept on snowing
and spring failed to appear.
Ground floor entrances were
buried, so we skied in and out
of second story windows.
The only way to find food was
by helicopter or dog sled. We flew in
extra dogs to help keep the trails packed.
It saved a lot of wear on highways
and since traffic lights were useless,
we shut down all the windmills. We
special-ordered barrels and parachutes.
When seed catalogs arrived, we burned
them in the barrels to keep the dogs warm.
We kept parachutes wrapped in backpacks
in case we needed a doctor or hospital.
We never discovered where spring
had gone but after the melt and
after the mud, we found roses
and peonies in full bloom,
as well as grasshoppers and
red-winged blackbirds
in the fields.