We had an all day snow yesterday, and the weather folks say we got 22 inches. Best snow of the winter, and it isn't even winter anymore! I shoveled for a couple hours, and then Margaret and Hazel walked up while Matthew rode the four wheeler and plowed out the parking area, and a path for the oil delivery tomorrow.
I don't think there is any day in a year that is so beautiful as this. Bright white snow, blue blue sky, and warm sun that is melting the snow. Perfect.
My local library recently purchased a book published in 1904, written by a woman about the garden at her summer home in my town.
Gardening is completely new to her, and she freely admits the mistakes she makes as well as delights in the successes.
I loved the following which I think is a lesson we all must learn over and over again. At least this is my experience.
I have found it advisable, in buying plants from a florist, to buy from one whose nursery is either near by, or, at least, located where the conditions are similar to the climate. For they are more likely to fulfil the promises of the catalogue if they are raised in the same kind of climate as the one in which they will be expected to grow.
I have had gardens for a long time, and I still get wooed by a plant in a catalogue which grows perfectly the first year, or sometimes even the second, but then gives up the ghost!
At my age, one might expect to go to funerals. In New Tricks, Jack Halford played by the excellent James Bolam says that he goes to a funeral every couple of weeks. Well, very, very sadly the last five funerals or Celebrations of Life Tom and I have been to have been young men. I’ve written about two of them here and here. In between them there were two others, one a bit older than Margaret, and the other in Michael's class, and then last month was the fifth. This young man was a year, lacking two days, older than my daughter Margaret. He died on the local mountain he loved, doing what he loved to do, snowboarding.
There were hundreds of people there. The place was up a hill, and we were early enough to park in one of the parking lots. When we came out, there were cars almost down to the main road. He was much loved in the community. I didn’t know him personally, but I know his mother, and his sister is one of Margaret’s best friends, and Tom taught him in school. There is something about the small Middle and Senior High School which all the young men, but one, attended that is very, very special. The kids were close, and they remain close. And many, many of them stay in the area. They love this place with the same passion that we have. Some move further away, but they they come back home and get together with all the friends they’ve known most of their lives. It is an amazing school and area that brings them all together for a lifetime.
After about nine days of dark, cloudy weather we have sun today. The blog header picture was taken yesterday, and here is the same view today.
January - 5
I've always loved John and Yoko's Christmas song, and particularly these lyrics:
"And a happy New Year. Let's hope it's a good one, without any fear."
