Weather, and the thought of the garden...

The biggest oak around, with its old treehouse...

Over the past few days, we've had nothing but cloudy skies, but those clouds have brought a lot of weather: rain, fog from melting snow, freezing rain, sleet, flurries, snow, fog and freezing fog. Right now everything - all the roads, stepping stones, and roofs - is covered in thinest, slickest, layer of white. Yesterday morning while walking the dogs, the yard was nothing but muck. A few times I had to pull my feet out of the ground. Sodden ground from snowmelt and rain. What will be the garden was impenetrable: not from the eight-foot tall weeds, but from the mud and muck those weeds are standing in.

I tell ya, the past few days, the prospect of this huge garden seems impossibly far off. I know that once I get out there, the progress will surprise me. But today, as the gloomy fog crawls across the fields, that progress seems unreachable. The seeds aren't ordered, the weeds haven't been tackled, and it's too cold to spend anytime outside. But that's just it: it's January, and the garden exists in the realm of the imaginary right now. And that's okay, Joe. That's okay.

In lieu of gardening this morning, I read. I finished a book while sitting on the couch with all three dogs at my side. Occasionally I would look over my shoulder: the birds found the bird feeder yesterday. I've seen some house finches, some goldfinches, some sparrows, and this morning a cedar waxwing dining on those seeds. I finished a book called "The Profitable Hobby Farm" by Sarah Beth Aubrey. At times the information in the book was daunting, at times useful, and generally, inspirational. Reading it as not only reinforced my soon-to-be-reality of stepping away from the corporate food culture, but given me some practical advice on how to do it. One thing I appreciated about the book is that all of her real-life farmer profiles were from the Midwest. Those that know me know that I have always been proud to be from Denver, but I have to say, I finding a lot to love about life in the Midwest, especially in the rural Midwest. There is a lot going on here with real food, with locally-owned businesses, with back-to-basics kind of living that I am very excited about. Stay tuned for more about this as I learn more...

In the meantime, the steam is rising on my office windows. The fog is obscuring the trees at the edges of the fields. The forecast is calling for more snow. And here at my desk is a stack of seed catalogs. That will be the next task.