Pines With Grape Vines

January 17, 2019 2 min read

This Christmas, the only frightful thing about the weather outside was its mildness. I DO dream of a white Christmas and when it's decidedly green, I'm disappointed. Although, it's hard to really complain given the polar vortex events that have plagued our part of the country in the last several years. I'll take partly sunny, green and mild over a high of negative eleven any day. At this very moment I'm witnessing bright, drippy weather as this weekend's three inches surrender to the midday sun. No worries, though: we're headed into a weekend promising a "snow event" so I'm excited.

Yes, it's after Christmas, and there are no famous songs touting the joys of a white new year, but January can lag and I think having some snow to combat can make this time of year exhilarating. From the macro view of a single snowflake, to mountains of white perfection, snow is stunning. And if there's no avoiding the white stuff, we might as well enjoy it. Hopefully, enough will fall to make Monday's holiday off of school one filled with sledding and snow angels.

Of course, snow at this time means nicely saturated soil come spring time: ideal conditions for gardening. This will be our first spring and full summer in our new home and we're definitely looking forward to establishing some fresh horticultural traditions on our new property. And it's never too early to start planning. Our new home is situated differently than our old one and even that, I'm noticing, will need to be taken into consideration. Where will my pumpkin patch go?  Can we feasibly grow all the vegetables our vegan daughter is already visualizing? Will the grape vines come back, the ones that grew high into a pine tree? It's not every day that one has a pine tree producing grapes!

What a pleasure it is, contemplating pumpkins and pine trees, imagining possibilities and plans. As the great Daniel Burnham once said, "Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency."

So whether you're mapping out a world class city or carving out just enough space to finally plant some cucumbers, make sure the plans you make stir your blood and energize these cold months ahead.

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