On the 107th of January

It's official. This is the longest winter on record in Edmonton, by a few days already. We're on our 171st day of sub-zero temps, but hopefully Spring won't delay much longer. Yes, we're getting more snowflakes today, and the kids down the block have built a brand new snow fort (in the park, to the right of the trellis). Last night I made my own snowman-sized snowballs just pushing a shovel.

But we're making the most of these extra winter days. We've been busy with minor home renos that take a major amount of effort. 7 hours of painting our hallway on Saturday; yesterday, today and possibly the rest of the week, the living room. Shadow has been rather confused by all the furniture in strange places, and I was going to bake bread today, only to discover that my bread book is in a cupboard covered over in newspapers!

In spite of this long run of snow and cold, there's always hope for Spring. It will arrive any minute, say my little baby tomatoes. Spring, and salad, coming soon!

Signs of spring

After a long winter that looked like this last week,

it's been hard to get motivated to think about the garden. But I did place my seed catalog order a while back, and it finally arrived yesterday, to my delight. So last night, I did this:



Soon to emerge from the soil are sixty tomato plants (hopefully) -- Romas, Oxhearts, Little Rubes, Golden Heirloom and Sweet Millions cherries, Bush Beefsteak and Golden Russian. And on the windowsill? Lemon Basil, Red Rubin Basil, Parsley, Summer Savory, and six jalapeno peppers. I can't tell you how happy these two little planters make me now, and especially when it comes to salsa time! And I have a box of flower seed packets for the front yard to dream about,  to be planted alongside last fall's 70 tulip bulbs that are waiting for the snow to melt.

At the moment, though, someone else is waiting in the front yard...

Hopefully he won't stay too much longer. Today's almost-spring sunshine ensured that I was wading through puddles on my way home from work this afternoon!