Wow, today it warmed up to 1 degree above zero!

I drove to the post office to mail seeds this morning after chores, figuring I’d make a trip to the 25-mile-away town of Virginia afterward, to do a little shopping. Nothing major, you understand, just more cough medicine for Will as his cough, unlike mine, is tight and he needs something to loosen it up. But as I left the post office, not only was it barely zero out with wind, but it was snowing like crazy.

Hmmm, maybe not going for a drive today! The visibility was poor and you always think what would happen on snow-covered roads, if the car broke down, etc. Nope, I went to our local market and came right home. I’d rather pay a bit more than chance trouble to save a buck. We say one degree above zero, briefly, today and it’s been in the thirties below for days now. Yep, winter’s here for sure! I keep thinking warm — you know, green grass, planting asparagus roots, soaking in the lake. It does help, knowing it’s only a couple more months away. Kind of…

I’ve been reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book, The Long Winter, for probably the hundredth time. It seems to somehow get me going, whether it’s canning time in the fall or during a tough spell of winter. You know, you think you have it tough, with a nice warm house, plenty of food and firewood, not freezing in an uninsulated building with only twisted hay for fuel and barely enough food to survive. It makes me feel like a sissy! Ha ha!

I’m planning to order 50 three-year-old asparagus roots to plant this spring (see I told you I was thinking warm!). They’ll be easy to plant, using Will’s “middle buster” plow to make a long furrow parallel to the north fence in the Wolf Garden. As we won’t have to plant as many different varieties of tomatoes this year, due to us going to transfer the seed business, we’ll have more room for other stuff. One of our asparagus beds is twenty years old and the grass has about taken it over. So, it’s time for a new one as we really love our asparagus! We had previously always ordered from Nourse Farms. But when I went to their website, I was stunned to find Johnny’s logo. And no three-year-old asparagus roots! Oh oh, another company has bitten the dust! Fortunately, I did find another company offering them so onward with the plans. I wanted 3-year-old roots as they can be harvested from on the first year after planting, unlike the more commonly sold roots, which are only a year old and you must wait a year to very lightly harvest for a short time, then a bit heavier harvest the next year. Hey, I’ll be 80 this year and figure I’d better harvest as soon as I can, just in case… — Jackie