Sunday, January 26, 2003

Allow me to present...

finally, a finished project

Chamonix! Now that you see it, you'll agree that there's absolutely no reason this should've taken 14 months. No cables, no lace, no colorwork, just plain old knit and purl 'til the cows come home. The pattern came from an ancient Vogue Knitting magazine (from back when Trisha Malcolm was editor and the patterns were actually attractive).

In other news, it looks as if our Siberian cold front is finally moving out to sea, or wherever it is cold fronts go to enjoy their twilight years. Although we're only in the high 20s now, I can see occasional tufts of high grass emerge from the snow in our field. It's far too early to stop taking massive doses of Vitamin D, mind you. But each day Mother Nature throws out a little something to remind me that this is all part of a bigger cycle.

Any gardener will tell you what these kinds of hints mean: Time to get out the catalogs! I have five different catalogs for perennials, annuals, fruits, vegetables, herbs, you name it. One by one, I'm carefully selecting just the right strain of raspberry, tomato, carrot, lettuce, radish, basil, chive, bean, dill, asparagus, and strawberry plant to get. And then there's the issue of flowers, which I'll save for another time.

Let's just say this is a wonderful time of year for gardeners. You get to plan enormous, elaborate gardens that are far greater than what you'll actually end up doing when the time comes. Aaaaaah, I can almost feel the sun on my face, the warm sweet earth in my hands, and the sting of mosquito and black fly bites all over my body.

No comments: