This is Winter?

alder_snow.jpg

I’m sorry, but for winter images I’ve gone back to February past. Today, we’re expecting temperatures in the low 70s. I had planned to cut firewood, but that seems unlikely. It will be too warm. The ticks will be out. The road is a muddy mess–turned to slop the way it usually does–in mid-March.

We’re talking with our contractor friend again today about getting up 10 foot posts and a bit of a tool shed toward what we hope will be our first successful gardening year following several years of planting a “Deer Salad Park”.

It promises to be a busy time by April. The “tweens” during which I had hoped to sandwich some actual accomplished work goals are disappearing. It is no longer winter. It is not quite spring.

I miss writing. I miss my camera. I miss the smell of garden soil. Its time to get the gears to mesh again, gain traction, steer wisely. Life is short.

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fred
fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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  1. “Deer Salad Park” Har. That’s rich. Well, the weather’s weird, but today should be a good one to get some sun and beat down the melatonin winter blues a bit. It’ll apparently turn more seasonable later in the week. Besides, isn’t this the month when it’s “in like a lamb, out like a lion?” If so, we might get hammered later.

  2. Thanks fred. We got ’em too in southeastern Missouri. I spotted them last week in a wet patch along the road. What’s this new bit of red, I thought, it looks like fall. And these hangers jostling in the breeze: fresh dead leaves?