Dreaming of Sweetpeas

The winter must be starting to wear long on me; last night I dreamed of a whole hedge of sweet peas I had planted. Of course, looking back the whole thing was surreal - I had planted the seeds in a window box and they had spread downward, not up toward the sunlight. Actually, the craziest thing of all was that they had grown in the first place - I never have any luck with sweet peas. Regardless of how unrealistic the details of the dream were, though, the message is clear enough for me - my mind is starting to toy with the promise of spring, the colour of green, the scent of fresh-tilled earth. I know we're only about to start February, but the daylight hours are beginning their stretch, we're on the right track.

Another sign that winter has been long enough is that I can't wait to hang the laundry out on the line to dry. The best part of a Saturday is bringing in those sheets and towels, and with them, the smell of FRESH. They can try all they want, no chemical perfume is ever going to be able to recreate fresh air and sunshine.

We still have two more months before our calf crop starts to arrive. At the moment the cows are all out on the pasture, and sheltering in a bale enclosure that Glen built for them. Other winters they've spent the whole winter in the barns, but Glen had planted grazing corn for them last spring so in order to utilize it they had to go to the feed, not have Glen bring it to them. We had to wait until the ground was good and frozen so they wouldn't trample it all into the ground and waste half the crop, and we needed a good supply of snow for them to eat because there is no water in that field. We didn't know how that was going to work out - this herd had always had access to water in the winter and we weren't sure how they would adapt to using snow instead. There was a week or so that they were pretty sure they needed to come home for water, but then they just settled right down. To tell the truth, we were aprehensive about it too. I know in the wild animals live off snow all winter, and our neighbour has been wintering his cattle like this for years, but when you've never tried it yourself, you just aren't sure.

Sometime this month Glen is going to start making chop for the herd again. The feeders have been getting whole oats and peas all winter, but closer to calving we'll be bringing the herd back to the corrals and stepping up their diet too. I'm kind of looking forward to this in a way - last year I set my mind to losing some weight. Although I cut back what I was eating right after New Year's Day, until I started helping fill and carry chop pails, nothing seemed to be happening. By the end of summer I had almost reached my goal, but there just wasn't enough physical activity to keep burning significant calories once the feeders were sold and I parked the lawn mower. Exercising for the sake of exercising just doesn't seem to be a good use of my time, but give me actual work that needs to be done, and I feel like I'm accomplishing something of worth. It may sound silly, but I can't wait to get back to doing chores.

The weather has been playing with us this week. We've had really cold temperatures - and we've had two or three days at well above freezing. The last two days have had the wind just howling out of the northwest, picking up snow and blowing it across the highways where it stuck because the pavement was so warm. I was glad that I didn't have to go any further than to town and back.