After a Long Winter’s Nap…

Last years garden covered in straw

The land is waking and so am I. This has been a long winter and has drug on and on. We didn’t really get much snow this year. The temps however, rarely approached 40 F and the sky has stayed gray for most of 4 months.

A week or so ago, I stood on our patio holding the leash while our dog “took care of business”. I watched as an old leaf floated lazily around our backyard before finally landing in our garden. Right after that a flock of geese flew over our house heading north. I took this as a sign that spring was on it’s way.

A couple of days later, I noticed the sky was more blue than gray and there was a strange yellow globe in the sky. I stared at it dumbly until finally a word came to me from the winter-adled recesses of my mind. “Sun!”

So, spring is almost here and I am ready to shed my winter’s coat of corpulence and spend as much time outside as possible. Here are some of my immediate plans:

• Garden. We had a small garden last year with the usual sort of plants. This year though, we are going to expand the size of the garden and grow a wide range of fruits and vegetables. I’ve ordered a variety of organic seeds, so we should have a great garden with very healthy food. I will post updates as the spring/summer progress.
• Backpacking. I’ve ordered some new sleeping bags and repaired some broken gear. My oldest son and I can’t wait to hit the Tecumseh and Knobstone trails this summer!

There are other aspects of my psyche that are also “waking to a new day”. But I’ll share more about those in future posts. Stay tuned…