Hope "springs" eternal

"Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's party!'" ~Robin Williams

I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden. ~Ruth Stout

No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow. ~Proverb

O, wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind? ~Percy Bysshe Shelley

So, Christmas is over. We don't do anything big for New Year's around here, and it's a long haul until springtime.

I look forward to spring more than usual this year. I've planted several trees and shrubs, plus tulips, iris, and other posies; I'm anxious to see which ones survive and thrive. We need to plant grass for a decent lawn, although Cliff says he'd rather wait until next fall to do that: fall-planted grasses seem to do so much better, and emerge with fewer weeds. There's enough remaining pasture-grass over most of the yard so that it's not just bare dirt.

I intend to do some vegetable gardening, taking it as easy on my complaining knees as possible. For some reason, bending over to pick beans with arthritic knees is extremely painful; so I may go with pole beans this year. Or I may find myself something to sit on and move it along the row.

I hope to have tomatoes to can, but other than that, I don't intend to "put up" much produce. Canning and preserving used to be fun; now it's drudgery, and as long as our finances don't demand it, I won't do it.

I eagerly look forward to the seed catalogs, which will probably start arriving in the mailbox today.

Of course, with spring comes my annual feud with the neighbors who climb the fence onto our property and steal my morel mushrooms; I wouldn't mind at all if they'd share, but they don't. They're going to have to be more sneaky this year, because where we live now I can look out any north-facing window and see who's walking around the pasture.