Starting Seeds

Began the late winter ritual tonight, with one small laborer.  I was management.

Straight Lines

It was seventy degrees today, and I spent the morning laying out the planting beds at the Cedar Ridge Farm - eight large beds, either 20 x 30 or 40 x 30, bisected by 10 foot wide paths.  The work itself was tremendously satisfying - straight lines of string, hard whacks on wooden stakes, the creak and crack of a winter soft body protesting against the work.

But what I desperately needed, and this day gave me, was a day outside, alone.  After a week when everyone wanted a piece of me - work, kid, house - there was just nothing of me left, and I needed some silence and wind and dirt to put myself back together again.

I wasn't completely alone.  I brought Otis, more for his own spring fever than for company for me.  I glanced up once from my measuring and pounding and saw him romping, flinging my discarded bright blue sweater in the air and leaping after it, full of bliss.  I think I'll always remember the sight - brown soil and light straw, gray sky, brown and black dog, and a blue sweater like a banner in the wind.

My joy today was more sedate than Otis', but inside I was leaping, too.

Thaw

Fifty degrees on Valentine's day, a gift to all the worms and birds and squirrils and people from mother nature, a big fat kiss to wake up all sleeping beings and prepare us for the big spring day ahead. I'm ready.

Seed Order

Here is the 2011 seed order list:

Broccoli "Early Purple Sprouting"
Cucumber "Solly Beiler"
Cucumber "Marketmore"
Huckleberry "Chichiquelite"
Ground Cherry
Kale "Blue Curled Scotch"
Leek "Giant Musselburgh"
Pea "Lincoln"
Winter Squash "Red Kuri"
Wormwood
Cosmos "Sensation Mix"
Dahlia "Unwing Mix"
Nasturtium "Moonlight"
Nicotania "Fragrant Delight"
Yarrow "Parkers Variety"
Sunflower "Tarahumara White Seeded"

Why wormwood, do you ask?  Homemade absinthe, of course.  I joke.  Mostly.