Snow Falling On Sheepers

The holidays blew by in a muddle of twinkle lights and eggnog, and already it is not black as pitch at 4:30 p.m. any more. That suits me fine. I am glad to lie down and shut my eyes in the darkness, but not before dinner. I am not quite to the point of lending any credence to the seed catalogues on the dining room table, but we’re getting there. I see at the end of the 10 Day Forecast, there’s a day when the high temperature will be in the upper 20s. I guess that will trigger the neuronal cascade that causes your hands to retrieve the credit card and open the websites of key seed companies. My son has already requested that we grow the snappy bi-color hippy tomato Burpee put on their cover this year, the Tye Dye. Why they felt the need to make the two syllables symmetrical, spellingwise, I do not know, but anything that a child wants to do in the garden gets my support.

Meanwhile, back in January, the waste hay that the sheep pull from their manger and then drop while chewing makes up their bed, and it is about a foot deep now. It’s nice and bouncy and full of sheep poo, which the USDA highly recommends, and when it comes time to mulch the kitchen garden in spring, it will be a rich top dressing. Again I am drawn back to the summer garden…. Maybe it’s closer to the surface than I thought. As the woodpile dwindles and the chickens and the turkey stay hunkered down around the de-iced waterer in their end of the barn, I guess we are all hoping so.