Brrrr…….

It’s been a weird week. Weather kept us inside shivering most days. When there was a break in that stormy pattern, we made considerable progress outside but that only lasted a day. So our garden overhaul, to get it ready for the onslaught of this cold winter, is constantly reduced to the few hours when the rain stops and the wind slows down. Otherwise the snow off the mountains nearby chills the wind past our endurance. Translated that means that we’re usually glued to the fireplace waiting to get something accomplished. But we do a lot of good thinking about it.

So I decided to do something about that and began a series of destruction of certain rooms and the opposite series of reconstruction. All this however, was done at a snail’s pace, unlike my past lives. Only on days when the gloom is pierced by the sunlight streaming through our French doors in the morning, does my engine start. But when it does, everyone around (cats, chickens and husband), better watch out. I am revitalized and like a whirlwind I can fine-tune big areas, one task at a time. My trick is that I never stop, once I start. Of course all this depends on a slight amount of sun to keep me going at full steam, but I do keep going even at half steam, if the sun darts in and out. With over an acre in planted garden beds and wild and crazy grasses growing everywhere that turn into unruly haystacks, I’ve got a lot on my plate to manicure into obedience. It isn’t that I want a purely cold and linear garden but more that I want a feeling of abandon that one can still walk through and admire. Unfortunately at this time of year, our chickens are rummaging through the same areas that I am attempting to organize. Many pretty bad curses seem to tumble out with increasing frequency when they deconstruct what I’ve just constructed. But I persist and often prevail after a fashion. Interpreted that means that they take their band and go on to the next garden that they dig up. Go figure.