Ice

We’re having winter this year.  Freezing rain for two days gave trees, bushes, swing sets and fences a hefty coating of ice.  Surprisingly, the ice did not form on the roads, and power lines stayed up.  So everything has been normal, except for the fact that we have mostly been tucked up inside and the garden is still encased in an icy glove.

I don’t think we lost many branches — just one off the back of this Japanese maple.

Taken by Katydid

The boys spent a couple of hours over the course of two days knocking icicles off of things.  Boys like to knock stuff down.  Ice is okay stuff to knock down. I made them hot chocolate when they came inside.  We were all happy.

I spent some very productive, happy hours myself yesterday with a cup of coffee and my seed catalogs.  The garden thawed out under the sun today, but I haven’t looked at it; it’s probably a swampy mess.  I wasn’t thinking about the current garden anyway.  Instead, I was imagining lovely ears of Bloody Butcher corn.  I finally finished The Resilient Gardener a couple of weeks ago and have been convinced that I need to grow corn for grinding.  Review forthcoming, although probably the better review would come after the next growing season, right?

I’ve probably overbought seeds again this year, considering I have a baby due the last week of March, but in January, hope springs eternal.  I could even hope that the ice destroyed some of the squash bugs that have destroyed my garden in July two summers in a row.

But I’m not sure if that’s being hopeful or just vindictive.