Sandy Strauss
It’s clear that we are moving toward spring. The days are longer, the snowbells are up, crocus sprouts are just starting to peek up from the ground, bees are beginning to stir. The earth has moved to a position where the sun is almost blinding as it shines onto the shades in our bedroom in the early morning. But the best sign…? The birds are singing again!
I spent much of a day poring through garden catalogs in late January, thinking about all the good things we want to put in this year. We’re hoping to try some new things–parsnips, celery, eggplant–and expand our fruit production with new blueberry bushes and some dwarf apple, peach, and cherry trees, and grape vines. More work, for sure–but over time, we’ll be nearly self-sufficient with vegetables and fruit all year round.
Speaking of the birds, Dave and I are both celebrating the growing morning serenade, but also realizing that we need to find ways to share a bit less of the berries with the birds. I think I remember reading somewhere about planting sunflowers to attract the birds, and that might help to keep them away from the fruit. Perhaps there are other plants that can be “sacrificed” for the birds. We certainly don’t begrudge them the food, but we’d like to spoil ourselves with good frozen and canned fruit (no nasty chemicals) during the winter.
Even though it’s a beautiful day, it’s still kind of chilly for spending time out working in the garden. But I’m chomping at the bit! Next weekend I’ll be home, but the weekend after I’ll be in Washington for Ecumenical Advocacy Days. That’s a good thing–this year we’ll be learning more and lobbying for the “strangers among us”–immigrants–but it takes me away from my kids (the furry ones) and my best friend (Dave) for most of four days.
Two weeks after that we’ll celebrate Easter–the resurrection. We’re already seeing it all around us. I will have Good Friday and Easter Monday off work. I’ll begin the four-day weekend walking the Stations of the Cross with Pax Christi in downtown Harrisburg, remembering our complicity in Christ’s death and in the suffering and injustice that exists in our world. From there, weather permitting, I will begin preparing the garden–another sign of hope and symbol of resurrection. I can’t think of a much more fitting way to celebrate that Easter event!
But today I can only dream, and get plants and seeds ordered so that we can make the dream reality in the coming weeks. I’ll supplement that by baking some bread, and making yogurt and pepper slaw. We’ll have salad and French bread for dinner. I’ll be thinking more about finding a way to grow our own greens year-round so that I’m not buying them. Fresh picked ones are so much better!
By the way, making bread is one of the most therapeutic things I can think of. If you haven’t tried it yourself, you should–hot fresh-baked bread, shaped by your own hands, is bordering on a religious experience.
Time to pray with my hands and a bowl of dough.
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I understand about chomping at the bit in regard to getting out in the garden! I became a Garden Zealot–much to my surprise–last year, and we are going from a small, 3 raised bed area to expanding it to over twice that this year! Easter is by far my favorite celebration…so much hope for our hopeless world. thanks for sharing!
Comment by planejaner March 7, 2010 @ 2:25 pmjane