WINTER

[Opsa]

What can be said about Winter?

[Opsa]

    Maybe it is because I garden, but I do not find winter all that depressing. Sure, all the flowers from the last growing are done, but next season is on its way and all our perennial friends have tucked themselves back down into their snuggly roots away from the wild winds until then, and they deserve the rest. So do I. There's no mowing or weeding going on right now. This is the time to plot! The time is now to pore over spectacular photos of plants in their glory and research which ones I could try here. Catalogues keep appearing in the mail and I keep dog-earing pages and circling prices. I cannot afford all these selections, but maybe I can try a couple. I still have a few gray months left to decide. Let's put on a kettle and discuss what daylilies are worthwhile and what tomatoes are fool-proof for fools like me.

I used to live in the city, where every winter day looked the same. Dirty snow, empty flower pots. But out in the foothills, winter shifts her robes ever so slightly all the time. Here in the seemingly sterile cold, the sky is more pure blue than at any other time. No moisture in the atmospher to haze it up. Often we see icy sun dogs dancing in their fiery colors on either side of the winter white sun. Does he have them on a leash?

The bare trees en masse take on sort of a mauve hue about this time of year. The evergreens take a slow turn from forest green to shades of bronze and purple. The day's first low rays of sun will suddenly highlight a segment of shrub in an unexpected apricot blaze and I will stand there, stunned, and gaze at it's choice. Why it? Why now? Why not? The fields of grasses and grains fade into soothing blankets of beige, tan, and champagne. Behind them, the mountains huddle together, leaning this way and that in their pale purple hoods. Sometimes they look like cats under quilts. So comfy. Let's not disturb them just yet.

On some days there lingers a peach-colored flare in the southern sky all day. I can look through the frozen mists of here and guess about the weather today down where our southern-hemisphere Toadfish live. Will Bluenose go fishing today? Will Gloria the Camel have dinner on the patio? They are warm. I am happy for them. I can wait my turn.