Monday Musings

It is last day of January and winter has finally returned.  Good thing too because on Saturday as I was doing some yard work, I noticed that my roses were starting to get new leaves on them.  Probably thought it was spring.  It seems every year the plants come out too early and then get snowed on.   Here at the water district we have 3 apple trees and had no apples last year due to the late May snow that came and froze out all the blossoms.  Mountain gardening is a challenge for sure and it seems many of the plants are easily confused when it comes to the seasons.  One would think they would acclimate, but many of them never seem to.  I guess this another reason why planting natives is such a good idea.

Since it is only January, I fear we are a long way from spring.  But one never knows either.  As I think back over the years, Easter always comes to mind because my daughters always participated in various Easter Egg Hunts around the hill and you just never knew if the weather is going to be conducive to this type of an outdoor activity or not.  On more than one occasion, they hunted for eggs in the snow.  They never minded though because they always said the snow made it easier to find the eggs.  All they had to do was look for the holes in the snow where the volunteers had dropped the eggs.  When it snowed, the challenge of actually having to look for the eggs was replaced with trying to pick them up out of the snow with mittens on!!!  This proved quite hilarious for us observers, although I doubt the children thought it was humorous.  But no matter the weather, they always had a grand time.

Unfortunately, my daughters' egg hunting days are over as time moves on and they grow up.  My  garden now replaces the egg hunts in my thoughts each spring.    Instead of worrying about whether or not to dress the children in snow suits or frilly dresses, I now ponder whether or not I should go out and cover a particular plant or tree to protect it from the frost or is it too early to put in the tomatoes?   But as always, Mother Nature has the last word and it is proving difficult to out guess her, no matter how long I live here.  In the meantime, I will just sit back and enjoy the weather and hope we continue to have a wet winter.