Spring is just around the corner. Right? Please?

This is the time of year when the packed down, turned-to-ice snow is a major danger to someone as graceful (not) as I am. It is the time of year when I know, intellectually, that the amount of daylight is growing each day, but the cloud cover keeps me from believing it. And, this is the time of year that said cloud cover makes me long for just a few precious rays of sun.

However, thanks be to God, this is also the time of year that I can order from beautifully illustrated catalogs and tempting websites concrete reminders that Spring will come, followed by summer, bringing with it more sun, and in turn lettuces, beets, onions, tomatoes, and all kinds of vegetabley goodness. I have spent hours planning my beds, looking through catalogs, deciding exactly what I want to plant and plotting, too, how I can plant most efficiently to take things with me should we sell our house post-planting but pre-harvest. (Hey, I can dream, can't I.)

Sunshine

Today was beautiful. Sunny. It was a day to convince us that spring isn't far away.

Mothers' Day and a big pile of dirt

My mothers' day present was 2 1/2 tons of landscape blocks and six yards of dirt so that I can have a nice raised-bed garden in my back yard.

Colin and the boys worked hard all afternoon Sunday laying the blocks. Yesterday a huge pile of dirt was delivered. (Although we ordered six yards, Colin thinks we got more like nine or ten yards.) The guys worked for several hours moving the dirt by wheelbarrow from the driveway to the garden. The garden is full but we still have a pretty good pile of dirt.

Today I am going to start with the planting. I haven't had a garden for years, so I am really excited about my own fresh veggies this summer!

I'm gonna play in the dirt

It appears that real for sure spring has finally arrived here in the midwest. It's a bit of a drab spring because the long cold snap froze our cherry and pear blossoms just as they appeared. It also zapped our rhododendron, the baby leaves on our red maple, our clematis and bleeding hearts and turned some leaves on other plants brown.

But I'm still excited to get out and work in my garden this weekend. We're going to get some veggies in the ground and just generally spruce things up.

Saturday will be a short work day and I'll need to scrub the dirt from under my nails, because we have our fancy dress-up ball to go to in support of the Bach Collegium. (Hey, if you want to come with us it's not too late!)

Daffodils

Here is a picture of my daffodils on Monday, with Ben-Cat.


This is one of my daffodils today.

The urge to nest

Generally if you hear anyone talk about the nesting instinct it is in relation to pregnant women getting ready for baby.

I am definitely not pregnant.

But for the past week I've been cleaning, organizing, picking out paint, making plans for my garden, and just generally wanting to stay home and work on my nest.

Anyone who knows me knows that this is far from normal.

I think yesterday I finally figured out where this urge may be coming from. The past few weeks have been incredibly stressful. There is the grief of losing my grandma, which although it was expected has still been very hard. I keep getting the urge to go see her, and then I remember she is gone. Last week my younger step-sister was in the hospital and came far closer to death than I think most of the family realized at the time. On Sunday a dear friend unexpectedly lost her younger sister to cancer.

On top of all of this, we're refinancing our house and it is spring, which always makes we clean and plan a little.

So that's why I'm nesting.