Christmas in January

January is a hard month.  

It may not technically be longer than any other month with 31 days but time moves more slowly in January.  The month stretches out in direct proportion to how far north of the equator you are.  I’ve lived farther north than this and experienced more darkness, but I was younger then; tougher.  I think I even used to like winter.  But this year I’m stuck in a mean ole’ January funk.  How do I bring myself out of it? 

Aha!  Seed ordering time. 

I never used to order seeds.  I always waited till actual spring kicked me in the butt and sent me to the local nursery.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  But why not give myself kid-Christmas-morning joy in January by ordering seeds through the mail?  And then receiving a package?  And then opening it up to see what came?  Yipee!  A seedy promise of spring.

Last year I ordered from West Coast Seeds and Heritage Harvest Seed.  This year I also placed an order from Veseys because they carry the russet potatoes I want to experiment with in my pallet potato boxes, which I learned to build here.

Wow!  The first package from West Coast Seeds came within 3 days.  And so begins Christmas in January.   I still have packages from Heritage Harvest Seed and Veseys to look forward to, and then another round of packages in March when the seed potatoes come.  Nothing pleases me more than seeds through the mail in the dark of winter.  So I shake my fist at the sky and say,

"Winter, you will be vanquished!"

And So It Begins

My husband, my dog, and I moved to our property 2 years ago.  Finally, after 18 nomadic years living in towns and cities across western Canada, we found a little piece of semi-wilderness we could call our own.  I’d dabbled in gardening before; when we moved from one place to another we left each property a little greener than we found it.  For example, when we moved to our previous home the yard was lawn.  Just lawn. This is what it looked like when we sold it:

But I never had the chance to really dig in, to exercise my inner farmer.  When we found this perfect but imperfect property with its perfect but imperfectly large house a fire was lit.  Not just from a spark in the woodstove in the basement, either.  I was ex-cit-ed. There was a bit of land here.  I could do something with it.  We moved in at the end of January and gave little thought to the heaps of snow covering everything.  What would be revealed when spring punched winter in the face and released the dirt from its icy grip?  That’s what I wanted to know.

Spring revealed clay.

Clay in the front yard, clay in the side yard, clay in the back yard, and clay in the back 4 (a smaller version of “the back 40” acres).  Clay on our boots, clay on our work clothes, clay under the dog’s nails (Scout loves a good muckabout),

...and therefore, clay all through the house.

But spring also revealed grass, a large garden area, some established perennials, and  a lot of potential.  It would work.  My vision was born.  Here I could grow a “real” garden, a big one like my mom and dad had when I was a kid.  Here I could build flower beds to beat the band.  Here I could watch moose out my living room window, put up bird feeders, find snowshoe hare tracks, and look out at trees instead of people.  And here, one day, I could even maybe, possibly, hopefully, have ... Chickens.

And so began the adventure.  An adventure that would take me up to towering vistas, down to deep dark valleys, that would lead to the vanquishing of my foes, and endless toil, heartbreak, blood, sweat and...  No, no, sorry.  Nothing so exciting as that.  Just the humdrum day-to-day adventures of life on Clay Swamp Acres.

But don’t worry.  There will be foes.