Well, we’re getting weather this weekend, which is the forecaster’s way of hedging his bets. The ABC television station out of Richmond had one forecast, the NBC station another, and the CBS yet a third. Looking at the pretty map of the state of Virginia and all the color-coded bands indicating snow, ice or rain, our tiny part of the world appears to be right at the spot where all three colors or weather fronts meet, making it your guess or mine whether we’ll see another foot of snow, a nightmare mix of snow, ice and sleet, or some sleet and then lots of rain. I’m guessing we’re going to get some mix of sleet, ice and snow. No matter what comes out of the skies, I’m also guessing it will be the second weekend in a row where everything shuts down – it’s going to be too dangerous to drive anywhere. We took a long walk yesterday and I got to drop off a thank you present at Mr Coleman’s. And on the way back, I was rewarded by the sight of the flock of Bob White quail in the woods next to our driveway again. I don’t know how they do it, but by the time I called John to come and see them, they’d bobbed and hopped out into the woods. You’d think a flock of brown birds the size of pigeons that hop up and down a lot would be easy to see in the snowy woods, but they vanished as quickly as they appeared. I hope they can find food.
I’ve taken to browsing my gardening catalogs like magazines. Schriner’s Iris Catalog arrived yesterday. I flipped through it several times, just drinking in the pretty pictures the way I used to do with the fall fashion issues of the women’s magazines years ago when I had to dress the part of up and coming executive. I’ve already picked out two iris to try but I won’t say which because I keep changing my mind.
Then something was nagging at me. I couldn’t figure out what. It had to do with the date. What? Birthday I missed? Something due at the library?
No – time to start my primrose seeds! I first grew primrose from seed in 2000, and we had a lovely patch of English primrose along side the house back on Long Island. They returned year after year and grew so beautiful. I’d never grown primrose before, and I enjoy them enormously. I “met” English primrose back in the early 1990’s when I worked at Martin Viette Nurseries on Long Island. They were the first harbingers of spring, those flats of English primrose and the larger plants we’d have for sale in the greenhouses by March. As always, I look for ways to save money, so I sought seeds to grow my own plants rather than purchase started plants from the garden center. It took a while to find seeds, but Swallow Tail Gardens had them, and I bought a package. It’s time to actually start tunder the lights in the basement!
So even though we’re getting another whack from Old Man Winter this weekend (and it looks like yet some other system brewing for next week), spring really is just around the corner. And that patch of ground next to the front walkway, still covered by snow, is begging for those primrose!
