the good days

Well now. I didn’t mean it! March is good! (Thoughts upon waking to a chilly 7F outside and a gusty wind, which you know makes it so much more bitter.)


An oatmeal kind of morning. Dig into the frozen fruits from the summer garden: peaches, raspberries.

And after? A small, really small period of work. But I’m restless. The sun’s out – are things warming up outside? I go out in a skimpy shirt to brush off the snow from the walkway to the farmhouse.

No they’re not.





And yet...

I suggest we ski before the one inch of new snow (truly only that) is ruined by others. Ed is skeptical. The wind is blasting snow this way and that. Bare patches mean scratches on skis.
Still, it’s so sunny!


We drive round the bend to our county park. My, but it’s cold. Must be all of 11F by now. The trail is not skiable. We opt for walking it.





It’s so cold that if you lift your chin up, high enough to look ahead, your eyes start to water and freeze, all at the same time. And so mostly, we look down. At deer tracks and mouse paths. I watch a gray one scamper into the buried marsh grasses. Why do you come to the farmette if you have such lovely and abundant homes here?





Our walk is just short of an hour, but it serves us well. But then, what walk has ever not been good for us? If you were to place Ed and I on the boulevard of life it should be on a path through a meadow or a forest. I like to think we are at our best there.







My scented geraniums (yesterday’s Valentine) need real containers and we drive down to Johannsen’s – the best place in town for the classic Italian clay pot, always cheap (under $3), always beautiful. I throw into the bag packets of seeds – more flowers for the garden. And why not! There is so much “garden” land at the farmette, so much soil to dig into. Ed’s shaking his head, though I’m sure he’s relieved that this year I’ve let catalogues alone. I have a good base in the garden from last year. I need only fill it in. Or not.


At Paul’s, over a coffee, I marvel at it all: to have this much choice on how to arrange a day (or a garden), even if it is only a week-end day, is such an incredible luxury! Shall we go home? I ask Ed.
In a few minutes. 

Okay. No rush.

The days where I can say those words are, without doubt, the good days.